Growing weed takes more energy than mining bitcoin. Can it go green?
In 2010, an energy researcher named Evan Mills was surprised to walk into a plant nursery near his Mendocino, California, home and find, among the seedlings and bags of soil, a display of gigantic 1,000-watt lightbulbs — a more powerful version of bulbs commonly used to light highways at night.
He asked the nursery owner what they were for. “He gave me kind of a side eye and then explained, ‘Well, this is for cannabis growing, you idiot. That’s what everyone around here does,’” Mills said.