Marijuana Grow Ops Could Soon Rival Data Center Energy Use
Forget about electric vehicles; pot is driving new energy peaks in the states where it is legal.
Data centers may be more ubiquitous than indoor grow operations for marijuana, but the latter are as energy-intensive as the former, according to a new report by EQ Research.
Indoor grows can have an energy intensity of about 2,000 watts per meter, according to the report, A Chronic Problem. A 2012 study from Berkeley Lab found that indoor marijuana production could account for as much as 1 percent of U.S. electricity use, about half the energy consumed by data centers.
But the amount of total energy used by pot growers is, well, growing, even if the exact figures are hard to come by. Colorado estimated grow facilities used about 0.5 percent of the state’s electricity in 2014. The state’s utilities say that figure is growing by about 50 percent per year. Within...
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