The Climate-Killers Inside

news story / By Peter Lehman and Peter Johnstone

Measuring the astoundingly high environmental costs of grow houses

(March 11, 2010) The grow house scene in Humboldt County has made us famous, like it or not. What goes along with growing pot indoors, and what is often overlooked, is the enormous amount of electricity that grows consume.

We like to think of ourselves as an environmentally aware community, and in many ways we are. Humboldt County has twice as many solar panels per household as any place in California. But with pot grows, we’re using our precious energy resources to grow a plant indoors, a plant that grows like a weed outdoors. It’s expensive, it’s bad for the environment and it’s wasteful.

Residential Electricity Consumption per Capita

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Electricity is a wonderful form of energy. It’s quiet and clean. It powers our lights, electric motors, refrigerators and all the other electric appliances that make our lives so much healthier and richer. Electricity is so valuable that we go through a lot of trouble to generate enough of it. We build power plants that burn fuel, make steam and turn turbine-generators. We build dams to block rivers and generate hydropower. We build transmission lines to carry valuable electric cargo to almost every corner of America.

California households use less electricity than almost anywhere else in America, and this despite the fact that much of California has a large air conditioning load in the summer. Our state has strict building standards, and Californians are particularly frugal in their use of power. In 2008, the average California household used only 64 percent as much electricity as the average American household. Good for us.

But look what’s happening in Humboldt County. The graph above shows per capita residential electricity use for California and Humboldt County beginning in 1990. In the early ’90s, use of electricity in our county more or less tracks the use in the state as a whole.

That was then. In November 1996, Proposition 215 passed and things changed — gradually, at first, and then dramatically in the last few years, Humboldt County’s residential electricity use has soared. Why’s that? Our lifestyle hasn’t changed much, but the number of indoor pot grows has. The graph shows the “Emerald Triangle,” which represents the increase in electricity consumption that we believe is due to indoor grows. By 2007, the last year we have data for, that extra consumption amounted to an average of 61 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month for each Humboldt County resident or 145 kWh for each household.

That’s the average for all households in the county and only a few of them contain grows. To bring the average up that high, grow houses use much more electricity than the rest of us. In a case prosecuted by Maggie Fleming in the DA’s office, one grow house used almost 10,000 kWh a month, or almost 20 times as much as an average household. It’s probably not the highest.

There’s more. Many growers have no reportable income so they qualify for subsidized electricity under PG&E’s “CARE” program, which is intended to help low income households keep the lights on. That means we all pay higher electricity rates and underwrite lower rates for growers who use this assistance program.

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NINE Comments

Comment / By LibLab Scare Tactics / March 11, 8:51 a.m.

CO2 is not a deadly poison gas. Plants breathe it. We used to have 18 times as much CO2 in our atmosphere and our oceans didn’t boil away. What a bunch of fear mongering!

Comment / By Conservo Yapping Points: / March 11, 11:57 a.m.

Apply a little scientific scrutiny to your ignorant blather. Better yet - put a plastic bag over your head so you can breathe pure CO2.

Comment / By HowScienceWorks / March 11, 12:05 p.m.

I feel sorry for LibLab. The same scientific approach that resulted in the computer you used to type your comment, clearly shows the impact of CO2 and the influence of human-produced CO2. This is NOT the opinion of one research group or a few scientists in England, this is the view of 95% of the world’s climate researchers, in universities such as Univ. Wash, Columbia, Univ Chicago (and on and on), as well as our national labs and agencies (NOAA, etc). It is sad that one does not take the time to read and understand the science. Citizens seem willing to accept other scientific investigations and ideas that result in technological advancement and quality of life improvements. But, if an idea conflicts with one’s politics, then it must be wrong. Rampant scientific illiteracy is my fear.

Comment / By Can’t Take The BS / March 11, 3:22 p.m.

“We” never had 18 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere. People didn’t inhabit the earth during the extreme climates of the geologic past. During periods of extremely high CO2 (100 million years ago), the oceans weren’t boiling, but much of the United States was under water. Who ever said ocean’s will boil? - talk about red herrings. Get a clue, and stop buying grow house pot!

Comment / By More concerns / March 12, 11:19 a.m.

More concerns not mentioned in this article that are also directly caused by our marijuana laws.

If growing and selling were legal, grows wouldn’t be indoor anymore. And, all the hazards with grows would diminish greatly. Although, the boom of grows in Humboldt would fade quickly because prices would drop, and grows would expand to other areas. However a few things would be a lot better:

Plants would no longer be secret, so they could be outside.
Pot theft would be a reportable crime thus deterring a lot of violent crime.
Pot would be reportable income, so it would be taxed, and the CARE program would be distributed appropriately.
House fires would be less common because people could hire electricians without fear of theft or being reported.
The smell. When your neighbor has a grow, it STINKS. If it weren’t illegal, it wouldn’t be difficult to approach your neighbors about this and other problems associated with grows.

Comment / By Take some responsibility / March 12, 2:57 p.m.

Those are indeed some real concerns. However, just as concerning in my opinion is the lack of responsibility demonstrated by indoor grow operations. While I agree a lot of these problems would probably go away with (full) legalization, pot is still illegal, and hence contributing inordinate amounts of CO2 to climate change, causing unnecessary house fires, fuel spills, crime, etc. Instead of scapegoating our current laws, why not take some responsibility for your actions, and grow for your own consumption?

Comment / By Cost of Prohibition / March 16, 7:43 p.m.

Of course the basic premise of “The Climate-Killers Inside” is correct. It’s silly to grow plants indoors under light bulbs instead of in the sunshine where they belong. However the authors leave out the most important cause of all the environmental degradation: marijuana prohibition. Unfortunately the authors assumption that outdoor pot can provide all the medicine we need depends on it being legal otherwise the market itself would have already ended indoor growing, as it is very expensive.

Although many growers qualify for the care program because their income is not taxable, most do not use it for fear of unwanted attention. In fact, PG&E charges more money the more electricity you use. Growers pay $.47393 per kWh for most of their power while the average resident pays $.11877 per kWh. So the assumption that we all pay more so others can grow pot is also incorrect.

Now consider the environmental cost of marijuana law enforcement. How much fuel is spent each year flying helicopters and airplanes around to bust people growing plants in the sun nationwide? How many resources and tax dollars are used to search out, prosecute and jail pot offenders across this country?

I think the author’s efforts would be better spent trying to legalize marijuana than villainize our neighbors. I for one would gladly give up a piece of our economy to see the end of the costly and futile war on pot.

Comment / By Emerald Triangle News / March 22, 12:01 p.m.

End prohibiton, and bam, you’ll end the indoor Marijuana Culture= $850 per pound won’t pay for a light. SIMPLE

Comment / By grow marijuana outdoors / May 9, 12:02 p.m.

That is why everyone suggests to grow marijuana outdoors. It will provide with all the supplements marijuana needs that you are trying to install indoors.