That's fine if you want to argue with the accuracy of the report...but quite frankly, I believe a scientific study done by Berkley scientist over your personal experience.
Go read the report and come back and tell me what specifically you don't agree with when you're done.
What kind of operation did you have going? Was it good? If so, you were likely using high pressure sodium lights which cost more than $100 to power for a week long, 12/12 cycle.
More importantly than anything above is the reason indoor growing consumes so much energy...which it does...and creates a huge carbon footprint...which it also does...Becuase people are forced to hide their production...and one of the tried and true methods of detection is monitoring household power usage, people often use things like gasoline generators which are inefficient and horrible for the environment. As well as a thousand other reasons...
I'd just suggest you read the study its self before you disagree with it. You can see a link to it in the sources at the bottom of the infographic.
I used a two 125 Watt CFL lights for veg and 600W HPS for bloom. My grow was extremely energy efficient. It was a vertical grow(youtube it). 40 plants in veg and 20 in bloom.
I also graduated from Berkeley.
Go figure.
At the end of the day we both want the same thing. Legalize marijuana. I had a good operation going but the paranoia was too much. If it became legal last year then I probably would've kept doing it. But it was just too time consuming and too much manual labor. Just not the way I want to make a living for the rest of my life.
So I decided to dive back into internet marketing. I love automated process's.
Back to the study. I agree it can take up a lot of energy. I've seen very elaborate 100 bloom operations. Very inefficient with energy consumption. The study is probably true with bigger operations.
But a small operation in a garage didn't take up that much electricity. I have seen garage operations that did take up like $800 a month. But it's not all operations. And ask any indoor grower if they'll grow outside. Most of them will say no.
For one... you can only grow once a year. You plant in the spring and harvest in the fall. You can't plant in the fall to harvest in the spring. Or in the summer or the winter. That's just science of marijuana operates.
Indoor grows, however you are tricking the plant to thinking it's spring by using blue color temperature light(CFL, flourescents). Then tricking the plant to think it's the fall by using red color temperature light(HPS) If you grow indoors, depending on how complex your grow room is: you can harvest like once every month and a half.
I really don't want to bash the study. We're in it for the same cause. I prefer to convince legalization for more obvious reasons. Increase state tax revenue, helps cancer patients, reduce crime, etc.
But to argue the point of the studies accuracy.
1 indoor cannibus plant = 70 gallons of diesel fuel
Not true. If you're talking about 1 plant(non adult) you can use a 60 watt cfl light to grow. Youtube has plenty of videos as proof. I prefer flourescents or cfl lights in the veg state. No one really uses hps for veg. There are even efficient grows using LED lights. (youtube it)
4 plant module=30 refrigerators
LoL. I grew 20 adult plants. Technically 60 total plants. But yeah. 30 refrigerators is a little overkill. Maybe for a 3 room grow with 200 plants. But not for just 4 plants. You can get away with using a 400Watt HPS for just 4 adult plants.
200 watts per square foot=modern data center.
A 1000 watt HPS light usually covers 10 foot by 10 foot area. So technically it would be 100 watts per square foot. But how big are garages? Mine is 20 feet by 15 feet. Unless you're talking about a full grown operation of like 500 plants that take multiple rooms in the house. But all indoor grows I've seen are done in the garage.
To me this wasn't done by scientist but by mathematicians or statisticians. Either that or the scientists never grew an operation. They just used numbers they found and used statistics to show a point. But from personal experience that point just isn't true.
You can try building a grow yourself or look at some youtube videos of indoor grows. And you'll see there's no way a home grow can emit as much electricity as a data center. Unless you have a full scale commercial building grow.
Also...people don't use gasoline generators in home grows. It's too loud plus the emissions harm the plant. They are more for underground or outdoor grows. For pumping water, etc.
Ok...now that was fun, but now it's time for me to get back to work.
