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Simplepowa
In Pursuit of Knowledge


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 4,310
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Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem
#19236235 - 12/06/13 11:58 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Drugs AlterNet / By Jacob Leland
Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem Environmental wariness and outdoor cultivation will be key for future legal marijuana production in Colorado.
December 3, 2013 |
When recreational marijuana use becomes legal in Colorado on January 1 , medical retailers expect demand to increase by 400 per cent. Increasing supply to meet that demand will carry with it dramatic economic and environmental costs.
The monthly energy bill for River Rock, a medical marijuana retailer with two dispensaries and a warehouse in the Denver area, exceeds $21,000. According to John Kocer, one of River Rock’s owners, that’s nothing: one of his competitors pays a monthly bill of $100,000 for its warehouse operation. In Colorado and elsewhere in the U.S., the pot industry generates more than enough revenue to pay its bills. The environmental cost of doing business, though, is a different matter.
In 2011, a study by researcher Evan Mills at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed indoor marijuana production accounting for 1 per cent of national electricity production, using $6 billion worth of energy per year, and creating greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to that of 3 million cars. Faced with the rapid growth of those numbers, the City of Boulder put into place the kind of environmental regulation ordinarily associated with corporate polluters. Boulder requires marijuana growers to purchase wind or solar energy, or to buy carbon offsets. That increases marijuana growing costs by an estimated 20 per cent.
River Rock’s new 18,000 square foot greenhouse will primarily use solar power, rather than artificial lights.
“Our primary goal,” Kocer told CBS Denver, “is to lower our costs as much as possible and pass it on to our patients.”
Outdoor cultivation is more energy—and cost—efficient, of course, but as long as marijuana is illegal on the federal level, we can expect indoor growers to increase their market share. A 2009 Justice Department assessment of domestic cannabis cultivation makes it plain: the primary advantage of indoor cultivation is to avoid detection, arrest, and eradication by authorities. But chasing the industry indoors as a matter of procedure and policy has its own, increasing environmental impact.
In Boulder, City Councilman Macon Cowles is proud of his city’s efforts to lessen the industry’s emissions.
“The marijuana is greener in Boulder,” he says. How green the greenhouses prove may be an important part of Colorado’s legalization process.
Jacob Leland is a writer, musician, and lapsed academic. He lives in Oakland, California tweets @JacobMLeland.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/how-can-we-keep-weed-green-marijuana-warehouses-are-massive-energy-suck
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Carl Sagan - "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people." --- Robert Pirsig - "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." --- Brian Cox - "[One] problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense."
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niteman

Registered: 06/29/11
Posts: 1,050
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: Simplepowa]
#19236297 - 12/06/13 12:16 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Is it not possible to grow weed outside in Colorado? I know all the druggies will call bullshit on this article. Many are the same people who preach green to everyone about everything they do. Hypocrites. The thing is i care more about the world i live in than marijuana. Sorry if you disagree. That said, there are bigger fish to fry i terms of people fuckingup the enviroment. We should probably take down BP or all the godamn refineries destroying the planet before we go after some weed growers making chump change.
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Immortal Jellyfish



Registered: 03/23/13
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Loc: Colorado
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem *DELETED* [Re: niteman]
#19236370 - 12/06/13 12:37 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Post deleted by Immortal JellyfishReason for deletion: Unnecessary post
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ElVatoFirme
The Thread Killer™


Registered: 11/13/10
Posts: 1,603
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: Immortal Jellyfish]
#19236436 - 12/06/13 12:54 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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^I agree. And a large enough outdoor crop will last all year. After trying organic, outdoor-grown marijuana, I've stopped smoking any other kind.
And all this article proves is the feds should leave Colorado and Washington alone, as well as ALL the other medical states, so they have no fear to grow outdoors. It helps the environment, which in turn helps the people.
And I agree with niteman, too. There are bigger fish to fry, but I guess they figure it's easier to fry the fish already fried.
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Did you know the pen Is stronger than the knife? And they can kill you once But they can't kill you twice Did you know destruction of the flesh Is not the ending to Life? Fear not of the Anti-Christ - Damian Marley -
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aperson444
Stranger

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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: ElVatoFirme]
#19237155 - 12/06/13 03:44 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Whatever happened to greenhouses? They're enclosed spaces and the need for powerful lights is a lot less... Because they're enclosed spaces, temperature could theoretically be regulated well too.
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muistrue
Inspired by the mystery


Registered: 03/20/05
Posts: 12,899
Loc: Behind the Redwoods
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: aperson444] 1
#19237411 - 12/06/13 04:47 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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It's getting harder and harder to make a decent profit with indoor grows these days because of the rising costs of energy and steadily falling prices of cannabis. Outdoor, light dep and greenhouses are definitely the way to go.
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Can-i-bus
Melting


Registered: 01/22/13
Posts: 1,161
Loc: WA
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: Simplepowa]
#19239319 - 12/07/13 01:22 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Simplepowa said: A 2009 Justice Department assessment of domestic cannabis cultivation makes it plain: the primary advantage of indoor cultivation is to avoid detection, arrest, and eradication by authorities.
The primary advantage is complete control over the conditions your plants are growing in. Honestly it takes more electricity to power the portable heater in my bedroom than a personal sized grow room. Warehouses are a different story.
I can't even get a pure indica to finish up on time around here so outdoor is not a possibility unless I move about 500 miles south. If everyone lived in a place like NorCal we probably wouldn't have this problem.
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Rockhound
The Rockweiler



Registered: 01/19/13
Posts: 664
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: Simplepowa]
#19239698 - 12/07/13 06:51 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I don't understand why the fukk we think cannabis only grows under sodium lamps. I love my little greenhouse.
-------------------- Rocks speak to me, and tell me this: The Hell Creek formation is a gigantic slab of rocks that covers several western states. It contains an account of the dinosaurs' demise. In the late Cretaceous period, the first Cannabis species appear, and soon after, all the non-bird dinosaurs disappeared. Obviously, marihuana killed the dinosaurs. That giant meteor that smacked the yucatan peninsula right afterwards, coincidence.
Edited by Rockhound (12/07/13 06:53 AM)
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Synthe
Gatorade me, bitch!


Registered: 11/10/12
Posts: 7,961
Loc: Three bags of Funyuns
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: Immortal Jellyfish]
#19239969 - 12/07/13 09:11 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Immortal Jellyfish said: I live in Colorado and grew a few super lemon haze females outdoors in the summer. Sold my grow lights and took down the grow room. Outdoors is the way to go imo 
Doesn't that make a lot of trichomes fall off the buds?
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theonlysun81
Long Time Lurker, Recent Member


Registered: 05/11/12
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: Synthe] 1
#19239996 - 12/07/13 09:19 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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niteman

Registered: 06/29/11
Posts: 1,050
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: Why Growing Marijuana Indoors Is a Major Environmental Problem [Re: theonlysun81]
#19242305 - 12/07/13 07:31 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Wow who would have thought something so simple could be so effective. I tried this guys light method on my tool shed and it totally works! Great for places (like my shed) that you can't afford to light with electricity but is very dark during the day. I like how they say in the article that he charges "a few dollars for installation" lol
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