People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

After medical pot use was made legal in California in 1996, Mills says, per-person residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50 percent compared to other parts of the state.

In order to produce some 17,000 metric tons of marijuana this year, Mills estimates authorized growers will use $5 billion worth of energy. That works out to the output of seven big electric power plants.

Much of the carbon dioxide produced by the industry comes from transportation, though the need for lights “500-times greater than recommended for reading” also uses a lot of power and generates a lot of pollution. Air conditioning, ventilation and humidity control also contribute.

In California, some 400,000 authorized growers use about 3 percent of the state’s electricity for their business.

“This corresponds to the electricity use of 1 million average California homes, greenhouse-gas emissions equal to those from 1 million average cars, and energy expenditures of $3 billion a year,” Mills says. However, since California is such a green state, it only generates 20 percent of national carbon dioxide emissions from pot growing, while using 70 percent of nationwide energy for this industry.

“From the perspective of individual consumers, a single Cannabis cigarette represents 2 pounds of (carbon dioxide) emissions,” Mills says.

For this report, which he published independently, Mills says he didn’t count the energy used in producing fertilizer, water, equipment and building materials also used in indoor pot farms.



http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2011/04/12/marijuana-causes-global-warming.html?ana=e_pft

Cow farts supposedly are causing global warming too.

For a moment I thought the EPA was going to blame me!

exactly!!! federal law needs to legalize it, it's a PLANT, let it be grown outdoors where it is supposed to be! 420 environmentally friendly.

I agree it needs photosynthesis

Uwe Boll movies also cause Global Warming. Stop Uwe Boll, Save The Earth.

"People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory"

I'm pretty sure plants use carbon dioxide so I would think this would offset. 1 percent wow...if only we could do something about how our electricity was created in the first place so that this would not be an issue for anyone using it for anything. I agree with bastet126, make it legal and it would not be an issue.

That is why I think most propellerheads at think tanks like Lawence Livermoore are overly educated shitteheads! CO2 is the least of our worries! Right now radioactive contamination from Japan is a lot more to worry about! Maybe those same shittheads at LL would stop releasing so much methane through their mouths!

That's far out man...