You and I have spent so much time and effort defending cannabis from pretty much everybody. First, we had to explain to people cannabis was medicine and not an addictive drug. And then we had to illustrate that stoners were not necessarily lazy or unmotivated. We have vision and take action. We had to prove to our politicians that it somehow would benefit them just to even get it normalized. And now with all the state laws favoring indoor cultivation, we have to consider the very real issue that cannabis cultivated indoors might be bad for our environment, electrical grid stability, the cannabis economy, and the cannabis community as well. Ouch. That's just not something I wanna think about. If you're listening to this episode, you are already a good person in my book. I imagine lots of folks might skip this shaping fire episode simply because they don't wanna think about how much energy cannabis consumes. But being a cannabis enthusiast means looking at everything to do with our favorite plant. And having the backbone to know when decreasing our carbon footprint, emissions and fertilizer runoff is a very important consideration. Yes, we will mostly be talking about indoor cultivated cannabis today, but outdoor and greenhouses have some energy aspects to consider too. Whether you are an environmentalist, an outdoor cultivator, an indoor cultivator looking to decrease your bills, or looking to make a case to start growing outdoors, this episode is for you. If you wanna learn about cannabis health, cultivation, and technique efficiently and with good cheer, I encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter. We'll send you new podcast episodes as they come out delivered right to your inbox along with commentary on a couple of the most important news items from the week and videos too. Don't rely on social media to let you know when a new episode is published. Sign up for the updates to make sure you don't miss an episode. Also, we're giving away very cool prizes to folks who are signed up to receive the newsletter. So go to shapingfire.com to sign up for the newsletter and be entered into this month's and all future newsletter prize drawings. If you like what we do and wanna put something in the tip jar, you can Venmo at Shango Los. You are listening to Shaping Fire and I am your host Shango Los. Welcome to episode 120. My guest today is doctor Evan Mills. Evan has an exceptionally prestigious resume and you can read it fully on his website. Here are some highlights. Doctor Evan Mills is a retired senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the world's leading research centers on energy and environment. He continues his collaborations with the lab as an affiliate and is also a research affiliate with the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley. He consults widely for private industry and the public sector. He has published 372 articles and reports, including contributions to 17 books and has spoken in 21 countries. In 02/2007, Evan shared a Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Evan has worked as an energy and environmental systems analyst on projects ranging from local to global scales. In the mid nineteen eighties, he studied and taught about green buildings before the term was in vogue. He received a master's of science degree in 1987 from UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group and a PhD in 1991 from the Department Environmental and Energy Systems Studies at Lund University in Sweden. While in Sweden, he worked closely with the Swedish State Power Board and the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development on national energy planning projects. His specialties are energy efficiency in buildings and industry and the intersection of energy technology, global climate and risk management. Evan frequently writes for popular and trade publications including Forbes, The LA Times, Slate, Salon, Technology Review and The Washington Post. And his work has been covered pretty much everywhere including the Atlantic, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, High Times, National Geographic, Nature, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, and Wired. Evan now lives in the Redwoods on the Northern California Coast and is an organic vegetable gardener. And as a novel side note, when Evan was a kid, he attended the Halloween parties that Cheech and Chong threw for their kids in nineteen seventies Los Angeles. Today, we will be discussing the ways that cannabis cultivation uses energy and the places you can save money by changing to energy efficient alternatives. During the first set, we will talk about the overall size of the energy footprint of US Cannabis cultivation and then dive into lights, HVAC and other big ticket energy users. During the second set, we dig into drying, transportation, packaging and retail along with a bunch of other sleeper ways that we waste energy cultivating. And we finished the episode looking at cannabis delivery and energy efficient cultivars along with the market and political bias in favor of indoor cultivation and the possible impacts that interstate commerce and national legalization might have on cannabis energy use. Welcome to Shaping Fire, Evan. Hey. Good to be here. Thank you. Awesome. So Evan, like, let's let's let's repeat what I've already said in the introduction once since you work have worked for with so many heavies that that you are here on your own capacity as a consultant and that, this work and your opinions today do not necessarily necessarily reflect those of the companies or institutions with which you have worked for, and you are here talking just for yourself. Yeah. That's fine. Thank you. Excellent. So, you know, it's fun to be chatting with you. Your your name has been on my lips for for, like, almost a decade. Right? Doctor Dominic Korova turned me on to your work in, like, 2014 or '15 or so. And, I've been repeating it and watching it, and and watching for more ever since. So then last week when I saw your paper come out, it was like it was like a long missed returning friend, Evan, even though I don't know you. And so, it was nice to, connect with you via email, and, I really appreciate you being here today. So thank you. Oh, my pleasure. Dominic put together a great book a couple years ago with, you know, 30 or so chapters from different experts all around the cannabis industry, all kinds of issues. And we had the pleasure of contributing a chapter to that as well. And I I have read it. It it was excellent. And and then when when when, when Dominic put it out, he was actually on shaping fur, and we talked about that at the time. And I bet you your name came up during that episode as well. So, so but we are here today because you have recently updated your work. You have a newly published paper in One Earth called energy intensive indoor cultivation drives cannabis industry's expanding carbon footprint, which pretty much, like the sauce is in the title. Right? We know exactly where we're coming from. And so today, I was I wanted to invite you on the show so that we can tease out, all of the places or or at least many of the places where cannabis companies can reduce their energy usage and, and and and reduce their carbon footprint. Now there there's no question, you know, reading your paper that you're making the case for outdoor cannabis, of which we are huge proponents for here on shaping fire. We also recognize that many of the companies have got themselves into the indoor side, financially, and they might not be able to transition out right away. And so maybe in the interim, we can at least start with electrical being used less often and start moving us all, the industry as a whole, in the right direction. Yeah. I appreciate the the vantage point. And, you know, I'd say for, for me in particular, you know, my home field, my work is around, energy management, energy analysis, energy efficiency. And where I started here on this spectrum, cultivation, and and we can achieve whatever we need to by doing that. And over time, I found how, virtually impossible that is to really get to a zero net carbon. So I I didn't start with the assumption that outdoor was the only really tenable, you know, direction. I I came to that very slowly because it it again, my my hammer is energy efficiency and all my solutions all my nails are energy efficiency usually, you know, in the world. But this is a very different kind of, a very interesting rich, you know, sandbox here where there are a lot more options. The other thing just to to, footnote is that we, it's important to talk about energy as distinct from electricity. It's it's not, often the case, certainly not always the case that, a given grow, outdoor or indoor is all electric. There's fossil fuel used in a myriad of ways. That doesn't mean in every single grow. But like in my study, where I'm looking at the whole life cycle, not just the cultivation phase, half of the total energy nationally at the end of the day is fossil fuel Yeah. Directly, not even including the fossil fuel going into the electricity production itself. So, it's important to think in terms of, think think widely and look widely at at where energy in all its forms might be used. Excellent. Thank you for pointing that out because I I definitely used the word electrical, earlier. And and and honestly, I will probably slip and use it again. So I I appreciate you, using that clarity, and and I apologize for when I I missed it again. It's fine. It's a it's a common thing. And and, you know, maybe another thing just to layer in here and we can come back to it later if you want is that, you know, while that, like you said, the title of the paper, you know, flags or signals, one of the main findings, it is nuanced wording and that, on the one hand, outdoor is not intrinsically, the solution or fully sustainable. And indoor, you know, similarly, there's a big spectrum of emissions and things you might get. So, there there can be plenty of problems around energy and sustainability more broadly with outdoors. So it's not simply a matter of flicking a switch and, going to, especially the current industrial scale paradigm of of outdoor. It's more than that would would be needed to really address climate, you know, let alone all the other environmental things that we're aware of. I was really surprised in the new paper of all the places that you illustrate where, energy is being used intensely and and is a is a place that we can either decrease our energy use or or get rid of it completely by replacing it. I actually find more interest in that than even in the lights. But but let's go ahead and start with that because everybody pretty much considers that to be the elephant in the room is is that when we when we bring the plants indoors, we have to create a man made sun. And and we do that by throwing lots of jewels at them. And, instead of me, trying to tease out the specifics, I know that you have answered this question many times. So I'm just gonna kinda hand you the mic and ask you to describe the problem with using so many so much energy in cannabis indoor cultivation. Sure. And and we can start with lights because that's where you wanted to start, and it and I agree it's where everyone goes. And some people, okay, say on the layperson end of the spectrum thinks that's the only energy use, which is fine, you know, mistake or whatever for general public. But, it's big. Lighting is big. We're talking I mean, of course, there are different lots of different growing context. There's a spectrum, so you can have the the plant factory that's windowless and all the lumens, all the photons are electric. You can, of course, have, I hate the term mixed lighting because it's like jargon and, you know, regulators use it, but let's call them greenhouses. And greenhouses can be also no electric photons, or they can have some electric photons, and most industrial, cannabis greenhouses do use electric lighting. But anyway, lighting is, you know, loosely like a third of the total energy use, total carbon footprint. It totally depends, you know, where you are and and what, genetics you have and, what what the facility is like. But, you know, lighting is big. And whether it's LED or HID or some or, something else, nickel metal halide, it's, it's still a lot of energy, you know. And, people look at the LED as this panacea, and and it's rolled out, reflexively all the time in conversations. And I'm a big fan of LED. My house is all LED. You know, it's what's not to like? No mercury, you know, energy savings. But, remember that to replace, let's call it a thousand watt HID light, it's a that's a 600 watt LED. It's still like a small floor heater under your desk. It's incredibly energy intensive and you put, you know, few thousand of those in a big greenhouse and you need a lot of air conditioning to deal just with the heat off the LEDs. So, yes, it saves energy, but it only moves the needle so much and it's only addressing a third of the energy use. And, yes, you may get some cooling savings. You may also get some increased heating energy need. So it's, you know, it's a system. We always think about buildings as systems, whether it's a, you know, a school or an office or a cannabis grow. Their leg bone's connected to the hip bone, and lighting affects cooling, and and, you know, all the uses are are connected in important ways. So I I don't know. I hope that that's helpful as far as lighting. Can talk more about it. There's some I've got a follow-up for you. Yeah. Sure. So so when we go to conventions, the lighting manufacturers, are continuing to impress us with or or seeking to impress us with, their, increased energy conservation, and things are getting better, and and every new model is going to to use less energy and and save the cultivators pocket money which is great do you see exploratory science in cultivation lights that is forthcoming that's actually going to be helpful? Because I get what you're saying right now about LED is yes. Yes. It's better than metal alloyed, but really, it's not moving the needle that much. And and if if I wanted to keep my LEDs and wanted to keep running indoor, my first response would be, well, the technology is almost there, and and it's about to be better. And so we just need to put our energy into LED research instead of trying to move us outdoors. Yeah. This is a broader, you know, just kind of conceptual problem or challenge or opportunity depending how you wanna look at it in energy management writ large. There there's never a silver bullet. I mean, data center, cement factory, cannabis grow, house, either the it's it's a orchestra, you know, of of measures that you need and want and are prudent to pursue for all kinds of reasons. So there's never one thing that's gonna solve a problem. There really isn't. Even, you know, you look at a car, like an electric car, well, there's, you know, 30 different energy efficiency measures going on within that that car. So there's always a constellation of things. With lighting, just to footnote a little bit what we were saying a minute ago, it's also you know, it's very, I don't like the word strain. I know everybody uses it, but it's not actually the word that's used in agronomy, you know, more broadly. They're they're they're crops, you know, or they're cultivars, cultivars. There's interest they're interesting papers, not enough of them, but I in my paper figure five brings the data together from one of the studies, and they looked at, multiple strains under LED versus HID lighting, and it's sobering to see, that some of them don't save any energy. They're much very little energy, and others save a lot. And so there's like a factor of strain and genetics and cultivar in the lighting performance. Also, there's a problem, again, more broadly in energy called the take back effect that, actually gets kind of embraced by climate deniers and so on a lot by saying that, well, if we save energy in one place, we're just gonna use more somewhere else, and I'm not that person. I don't subscribe to that, and the evidence doesn't support that. But you do see a lot of places where cannabis grows, and you'll you know, in the trade literature, you'll see the advertisements from the lighting manufacturers brighter than the sun, not just as bright as. And people will increase the the DLIs and increase their yields, and so we have to think about energy per unit yield rather than energy per square foot and so on. But it is often happening that people, because they're saving so much money on lighting energy bills, that they will pump more light in. And so that's not the expected, you know, behavior with energy efficiency. And so one has to look carefully at how much energy is being saved and how you're measuring, you know, those savings. So it's just a little bit more in light. You can steer me back around if I if I, didn't actually answer your question. No. No. That that's a good answer. So my follow-up question now I recognize that, that you are here to raise the flag of using too much energy, and it isn't necessarily also your mandate to solve them all and to solve the policy questions behind them as well. So so with that in mind, I'm still gonna ask you a solutions policy question, just because you have had this conversation with many people, and perhaps you have heard something. But, you know, you're you're not, you know, you're you're you're a friend of cannabis, and and, you're aware of the indoor outdoor cannabis debate about quality. And, you know, I and generally the guests on this show loved, you know, we stand with sun grown flower as have as having a wider, aroma profile and, healthier plants and, you know, more resilient, higher yields, all all of this kind of business. But there is something, that is quite special and unique about, flower that is grown indoors. It's aesthetic value. And also to get, outdoor cannabis that competes with the quality of indoor, there are only a handful of places in the country that can do that naturally. And and and so a lot of people just aren't interested in this, discussion at all because they want to grow the best cannabis in their region, and they don't live in Garberville. Right? And so, and so people say, hey. I'm I'm going to turn to my indoor. Do you have any idea of how we can resolve the the people wanting to grow good cannabis in places where the weather is not Northern California? Yeah. Great question. It's so important. And some of the answers are counterintuitive, I think, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but it's it's such an important line of conversation. And and, if you you probably have already, but if not, you know, I think a whole show on really drilling into the quality question is important. I'm I'm, you know, there's a lot to it. Right? What defines quality? There's, you know, the visual, there's the aromatic, there's the medical effect, there's the inebriation effect, and there's so many vectors of quality. They're all legitimate. I mean, they're all things people are seeking, just like a good wine. But there is debate there for sure. I mean, there's a lot of and including in the science literature looking at CBD profiles, that, you know, outdoor is not necessarily inferior at all by, you know, many metrics. And and when you look at and I'm not saying it's superior either. I'm just saying one can't just have, like, a blanket concession, you know, that indoor is superior. And certainly when it comes to potency, I mean, that itself is a whole hour. Right? And, you know, is 35% higher quality than 25%, you know, is is that really how we look at this? And obviously, when you're making oil, then that's not or any kind of extract, right, that that's not even the thing anymore. So higher potency to me is one of the weaker arguments. You know, certainly, aesthetics are there. Going back to what we were saying a few minutes ago, you know, there is this spectrum of growing environments and you have people like, you know, Jeremy Moberg out out there in the Eastern East Of Washington growing in, you know, I don't know the right word, hoop houses or whatnot. Getting, you know, extraordinarily beautiful, I think, you know, award winning, cosmetically flowers, and and I'm sure many other, you know, people around. And like you said, some people, are very successful, but it is an art. It is not as easy as most people think. But I think, you know, that's doable. And, I think also there is the baked in assumption, you know, in what you're saying, which is fair, that everyone wants to be able to grow it everywhere. Does everyone grow pineapples everywhere? Does everyone grow cranberries everywhere? Does everyone grow kiwis everywhere? Does everyone grow, you know, corn everywhere? I mean, I live on the Mendocino Coast. I can't grow freaking corn. I'm not gonna build a greenhouse to grow corn. You know, you can't really succeed at that anyway. Mhmm. So there is there is a kind of swimming against the tide there. I did a one of the many little calculations in the paper was, how much land area would it take to grow all of the cannabis, you know, 24,000 tons roughly of cannabis that Americans consume every year in The US? And the answer is 0.003%, three thousandths of 1% of all US farmland. So, you know, we could clearly grow all the cannabis that Americans want and it could all be, you know, in almost, you know, the ideal climate. I'm not saying that's happening tomorrow, you know. That's a whole hour about interstate commerce and Right. Right. Pros and cons of that and so on. But, there is a kind of a an implicit, you know, requirement that it be grown everywhere. And that said, I don't know. I mean, there is outdoor cultivation in every state And I don't you know, Alaska, you name it. And I don't know, you know, what the best producers in each state look like, but there is a lot of room there. And I don't I'm not aware that anyone has found, like, a medical element that is only achievable by indoor, but maybe that's there. And if there's a need for medicine, you know, these things are are all nuanced, in all spectrums. And and if there's an really a need that's demonstrated for indoor, for for some particular reason, you know, then that that should be looked at and supported. And then it goes to what you were saying a minute ago. So what do we do here and how do we make that more efficient? Because also, you know, it's easy for me to say, well, in a perfect world, this cultivation more of this cultivation would be outdoors than it is now. And and, you know, remember, a lot of cultivation, not just at small, you know, artisanal scales, but at industrial scales is outdoor already. And I know most of that's headed for oil. But, anyway, there's there's a lot Which is a shame. Right? Like, it's it's really a shame that so much of the outdoor is just, air quotes, just headed for oil. I mean, oil is honorable, but but it's it's it's really amazing to me that people, treat treat outdoor as such a a a mediocre commodity. Yeah. When when I go down to California, I'm only interested in finding Northern California regenerative outdoor to purchase, and they wanna put all this mass produced indoor shlock on me. And and it's really surprising that that the outdoor, what I consider the higher quality regenerative stuff, is discounted because people don't want it. It astonishes me how that market dynamic works. Yeah. Certainly, you know, one, participant in this whole ecosystem are the budtenders, and their level of literacy or interest in the relative merits of the two in the carbon footprint, is, you know, small in almost all cases. And of course, there's no product labeling, which is ironic. Right? There aren't many industries that have as much product labeling in the sense of CBD profiles and THC and and and, differentiation on cultivars. You know, you don't go to the market and and have all the different, you know, types of corn labeled by their cultivar. Mhmm. Or, you know, there might be a little bit of that. So, you know, that's an issue. I think consumer awareness I mean, we're getting away from the technical into the human and into the consumer level, but, you know, consumers are not aware, you know, that one pre roll emits, you know, 5,000 times its weight in c o two. That one pre roll is like driving 65 miles in the best plug in hybrid that's out there, that one pre roll is as much of a carbon footprint as 300 cigarettes. And, I think things like that are you know, consumer awareness is important. People talk a lot about free markets and markets functioning well and not needing regulation. Well, one of those assumptions is that the consumers have perfect information about everything and are making decisions with a full, you know, visibility of their choices. And so that's, you know, we're we're straying from the quality issue, I guess. It's still, you know, it's consumer choice, but there are a lot of attributes and quality is one of them. And you could also argue that the environmental footprint is an element of quality, and a given consumer could look at it that way or they could not. But, without knowing what it is you, but not at all. To to weigh it in. Yeah. Yeah. And and you can't expect that they all ever would, like, just like with everything else. I mean, it's, you know, consumers are not trying to optimize our planet for environment. You asked, you know, you asked a bit about, you know, lighting and then going beyond lighting. And and so let's say lighting is roughly a third and your mileage may vary a lot. Mhmm. But, you know, there's heating, there's cooling, dehumidification is huge. You know, the plants are, of course, transpiring and releasing a lot of moisture. And if you're growing hydroponically, there's a lot of water coming out, you know, around the plant, and that, you know, obviously creates a big risk of of mold and and, other issues. And so there's dehumidification, which is very energy intensive. And then, you know, moving air, you know, there can be thirty, forty, 50, 60 air rotations in a in an indoor grow in a in an hour. You know, by for contrast, a house has, like, one or two or half of an air change per hour. Lot of energy moving that air. You're you're irrigating. You have pumps. You're, possibly treating that water. You're possibly heating that water or even cooling that water depending what climate you're in. I bet down in Coachella Valley, they have cooler, you know, water chillers that are chilling, irrigation water. And, if you have your own water supply, you're pumping. And, so just as far as energy uses, and then there's curing. And then often there's extraction on the site. And then, you know, there's a lot of cold storage now in the industry. There's, you know, vast overproduction, like, vast overproduction in the industry. It's more well documented in Canada than here, but definitely happening here. And so that stuff, it's going into refrigerators and freezers. And I'm just saying, like, it's it's back to the earlier point. There's no silver bullet, but all of these things use energy. And they all have energy efficiency options. You know, they're all manageable to a point, and they should be. You know, if they're used, they should be done as efficiently as possible. And so those are some of the ones that are in my numbers. They're for people who are concerned about, oh, Evans numbers are too high. There's a heck of a lot of things I left out because there were no good data, you know, to include them. And and there's a figure, I think figure one in the paper that kind of has this map of the the whole kind of carbon system, you know, around cannabis and which things I've been able to quantify and which I haven't. But, you know, on there's, you know, in energy, there's, you know, managing your carbon dioxide. There's UV disinfection. These are all things I couldn't include odor removal, not necessarily so much in cannabis, but, you know, in other indoor ag, which I'm also studying. There's soil steaming and cleaning soil to use again. There's recovering water out of your air conditioning or your HVAC, exhaust stream. In some climates, there's snow melting. Again, that's more for other crops, but that really happens. You've got your infield farm equipment, talking about outdoor. There's data. People wanna use AI and robots, you know. I mean, this industry is automating very rapidly, right, again, not at the small boutique grower level, but where most of the cultivation happenings. And and as we know, you know, AI uses a lot of energy, and and mechanization uses energy, and instead of human labor. And, you know, the list kinda goes on, but just to say, yes, there there is a lot of other energy use besides lighting. The good news is that they all are manageable to one degree or another in terms of of energy efficiency. I've got one more question for you before we go to the first break, Evan. And and that is, you know, you mentioned early on, where moving from traditional lights to LED lights is, you know, it's it's good to move in the right direction, but it doesn't really move the needle. Mhmm. And, you know, you just gave us a a healthy laundry list, and and we'll we'll we're gonna dig into more of those during the second set. But, you know, you gave us a a laundry list of all these other places that are, energy intensive in the indoor cultivation zone. If if we went and got the energy efficient version of all of these, the the energy efficient, you know, water cooler, and the energy efficient, you know, lighting, and the energy efficient, you know, automation. And if we just went down the list and got them all Yeah. Would that move the needle or are we just kidding ourselves? It would, but it won't because It would, but it won't. Yeah. Because, yes, you can kind of, play god in the sense of specifying all this stuff and then we haven't even talked about solar yet. And, you know, you could make a zero energy grow, but the the obstacles to that, the the resistance in the market itself is enormous. I mean, the the surveys, the market surveys done of the growers say they want about a three year payback time on any capital investments. More than half of them want a three year payback time or less. So you can't even though that's 33% of return on your investment, I wish I could get that in the bank. Yeah. That's not gonna get you far at all. There was a big study that came out in Canada and there's been a few that have tried to look, you know, we call it kind of techno economic studies, you know. How about this technology? How much does this cost? How much does it save? Payback. And they're getting numbers like, you know, 10 to 20% energy savings potential in cannabis grows. Again, you can't just pick lighting. Right? I mean, LED is hard enough to get it to pencil, but, you know, you have to look at all these end uses. And so, you know, while there may be a technical potential for, let's just say, 75% energy savings, which is what I stipulated in 02/2012 in the first paper, no one who is trying to earn a profit, you know, who has investors is gonna ever be able to get anywhere near that. And so and then with solar, the problem is that the land use becomes untenable. I'm doing analysis now. It's looking like cannabis facilities depending on climate and location sorry, climate and facility type. And like you said, you know, people wanna grow in harsh climates, right, because they wanna grow in their state or in their town. So it can be as bad or even worse than a hundred times the roof area in solar. And, you know, the best I've seen are like 20 times the roof area or maybe 10 times the roof area. And so all of a sudden, you're using more land than you would be with outdoor cultivation. And and land sparing or land savings is one of the top, you know, arguments that are used for, indoor agriculture more more generally. So there are these kind of real world inconvenient, you know, constraints around it. And meanwhile, the industry is opposing not opposing, that's not fair, but, you know, like the California Energy Commission was putting out public comment requests for energy efficiency standards on indoor grows. And the industry comes out of the woodwork with all kinds of opposition to it, you know. And and the uptake of LED is still pretty low, to be honest, you know, in the market. And so it's, it's hard. You know, it's gotta be done willingly or ideally it's done willingly. And if it's not done willingly, then the regulators come in. And people don't want any more regulation on cannabis, but they won't do it on their own enough, you know. So it's it's rough. And so I use the the term, optimizing the suboptimal. Yes, you can optimize these things. You can do better. And and Lord knows people are. I mean, I'm not here to criticize and say the industry is not doing anything. The LED look, their heat pumps are coming in. People are, you know, trying to use AI and things to optimize water application, minimize water use, and therefore, pumping energy. So their efforts are being made, but it's just, you're not getting that far. And, so we're optimizing the the suboptimal. It's so much more elegant technologically and economically to grow outdoors, if you can address the quality issue and and still do that sustainably because there's plenty of inputs, you know, to outdoor cultivation. Alright. So hold on up on that because I'm gonna pick up on inputs in the second set. But but I I want you to follow-up on one thing before we go to commercial, which is, earlier in the set, I I said, okay. If we if we do if we change everything to the energy efficient version, will it move the needle? And and and and and is is the technology in LED just not up to the standard yet, and we're about to. So we can just research our way out of this. I have the same question about the solar panels because, solar has always been one of my things that will save indoors in my head. Right? Without being a solar nerd. Just hoping hoping that to be the case. And, do we see technological advances that are coming down the pipe in research that might be able to increase our efficiency so it wouldn't take 20 to 30 x the the roof space in solar panels to feed a cultivation center? Or or are are are are we not, foreseeing that in any kind of immediate future? Yeah. I don't not in our lifetimes and not not even in a longer time frame. Not not sufficient at all. I mean, LED is incredibly efficient. Yeah. They're still working on it. I mean, solar is incredibly efficient. The best panels are, you know, there's been huge progress. It'll continue, but it's not it's not of this the magnitude that you need. You know, you've got factors of 10 and factors of a hundred improvements you need here. I think there are other domains like strain. See, there I go. Genetics, cultivar, huge differences. You know, actually, that figure five in the paper shows just at the energy use for different cultivars, and that's an area where you might get 50% savings or 50% increase, you know, depending Sure. Where you're moving between. So, you know, there there's also a broader array of possible, things to do rather than changing one widget for another, you know, in your growing process. Mhmm. That that's something to, you know, to to look at. Excellent. Alright. So let's go ahead and take a short break, and we'll be right back. You are listening to Shaping Fire, and my guest today is energy and environmental systems analyst, Evan Mills. 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You'll find an up to date menu of both feminized and regular lines along with photos and descriptions. That's humboldtcsi.com. Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire. I am your host, Shango Los. And my guest today is energy and environmental systems analyst, Evan Mills. So at the end of the last set, we were talking about the, all the different places that energy usage can be tamped down or stopped in an indoor cultivation environment. And, you know, I have heard people push back before Evan and say, we love cannabis. It makes life livable. Why are you harassing cannabis cultivation when there are so many other things, that we should be harping on? And I I know there's a logical fallacy there because the fact the fact that we should be doing something about energy in a different sector doesn't really say anything about not doing it in our sector, except for the fact that we all love cannabis. Right? But I'm heard I bet you've heard this quite a bit. And and what do you say when people push back like that? Yeah. I I say that that it's and and not or. You know, we just like you, there's 20 ways to save energy in a house. There's also 20 ways to save energy in an economy or on a planet. And we need, you know, we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 90% or more on this planet to save ourselves, you know. And you can't do that with one thing. You can't do that just going after cars or steel making. You know, it's just it's gotta be it's gotta be taking every opportunity. And the, you know, the dirty secret is that cannabis is actually benefiting from a double standard, you know. It's it's arguably one of the last industries to come to energy efficiency and sustainable energy because, you know, by virtue of the illicit market history, it hasn't been, exposed to or eligible for, you know, energy tax credits or energy education even or utility rebates, and the, you know, the stealthy nature of it, you know, and the low capitalization doesn't provide the money to invest. You know, those days are gone. And, you know, in California where I live excuse me. In California where I live, it's, you know, it's been a quarter of a century since we've had, you know, legal medical and since cultivation's been done legally. We've had a lot of time. The industry's had a lot of time to figure out how to do this well. So, I don't know if that that helps, but those are those are some thoughts. I think it also matters in aggregate, you know. If this was a tiny tiny amount of energy, tiny tiny, then, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Why it shouldn't be a priority. I mean, we only got limited time, limited money. But it's really stunning how how big it is and how big it's become. In my since my 02/2012 study, the consumption of cannabis in The United States has tripled. So the cultivation has tripled. It's even more than tripled for subtle reasons. But the so the the energy use now because I in the paper, you know, I look at the per square foot or per kilogram more importantly, you know, energies, but I also look at the macro, the national level. And the carbon footprint now today, even including all these uses that I've left out, is equal to that of 6,000,000 homes, 6,000,000 average American homes, 10,000,000 average American cars. It's more than than crypto mining. Wow. It's four times. I mean, I was It's crazy. I think that's more than crypto mining because it is hearing about crypto mining, inputs and and and and our cannabis is more. And and so that's part of that double standard. It it's gotten less attention than it merits, not more I would argue. And the other thing that was stunning is that it's four times the energy use of the pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing sector. And so putting all other commentary and things aside as a medicine, you you know, that needs to be owned. Mhmm. You know, that needs to be owned. It's four times the food and beverage industry, which manufacturing, these are national statistics from the US Department of Energy, and that includes beer and wine production, food and beverage. And it's the same as this one is stunning. Like, it's the same as all other outdoor food crop production. How can that be? Wait. All wait. It is equal to all of the food crop production in The United States? All of it? Yeah. That's an absurd comparison. Because that's that's outdoors. I mean, only 1% of the cannabis carbon footprint is due to outdoor cannabis cultivation. Right? So it's the indoor I mean, I'm doing my next paper's on indoor growing of cucumbers and tomatoes and lettuce and all the other food props. They're a problem too. Not nearly as bad as cannabis, but they're, you know, hundreds of times more energy than outdoor lettuce production, outdoor tomatoes, and so on. So it's just the energy intensity is so extraordinary. And outdoor cultivation, you know, it uses relatively little energy per acre. I mean, you've got your tractors and your water pumps, and a lot of food doesn't require, you know, drying or curing and, you know, there's lots of reasons why that is. But cannabis is 300 times at least as much energy as indoor lettuce is. So it's just a lot more energy intensive. And, you know, and then for the those are big, like, abstract numbers. I mean, they're helpful because they're in context. I think the comparisons actually help more. Yeah. They do. So then the like, to to thicken that broth, I also look at just to help this be accessible, you know, or put in perspective. What about from the consumer perspective? I mentioned a little bit before about cars and driving. Here's another one. If you look at the, you know, different tiers of consumers, obviously. So you look at the daily or near daily user, which is, like, I don't know, 15,000,000 people or something in The States. Their carbon footprint, if they consume just indoor grown at average US conditions, outdoor grown, it's a different story, they consumed indoor grown, their carbon footprint from their cannabis consumption is half of the carbon footprint of their entire home, meaning their fridge, their cooking, their heating, and their cooling in average US conditions. It's like three cross country road trips per year in a in a plug in hybrid. It's like a % of their annual food consumption. So if you look at the energy footprint in their other food, including meat eaters, it's roughly on par with the carbon footprint of their food consumption. And we're just talking about, you know, a couple of grams, few grams, whatever a day of of cannabis. And it's not much better if you're a healthy, healthy vegan or vegetarian, but it's, you know, the the difference is is even greater. Mhmm. So it's just it matters, you know. And and we can't we have to do everything. It's an all hands on deck climate emergency, you know. And so we just need to look at everything and it's not, you know, blaming and making bad. It's, you know, more in the spirit of what you were saying before. How do we do better? What where are the inefficiencies? And where where can we be more, you know, have a a lower smaller footprint in in this industry? I wanna pivot, a bit until to to start talking about post harvest, because like you said, we could spend hours going through a detailed checklist of all of the different, parts of cultivation where we could, strategize differently or use different technology. But, it's it's it's arguably just as ugly after, the flower has been dried and cured and is on its way out the door too. Mhmm. One of the things that, you know, I'm not it's not like I'm the only one, but but but one of my big pet peeves are duvetubes. And the the idea that we're we're, you know, creating all these plastics and future microplastics, and and then if it's a it's a if it's a really high end, maybe a a hash infused or something, pre roll or Kanagar, then then they're adding extra stuff. Like, they're they're adding plastic based sticker, and then, like, some kind of, like, cool seal, and and then maybe even a box around the outside. Right? And and and it's like, there's only, you know, there's only a gram or two of weed inside that joint, and there's all this packaging to give it vibe so that it sells. And, I I imagine that the packaging is just ugly in the numbers. Yeah. There isn't a new paper I know out about that in in particular, and it's you know, I looked at the solid waste streams. I mean, a lot of that is is just plant residue, but it's also, you know, spent mineral wool, and it's the plastics for the cultivation. And it was, like, I think, 15 times the weight of the flower or something, and just that solid waste part. You mentioned vape cartridges and the like. And, you know, one thing that's so sad there is that vapes have tiny lithium batteries in them, and they go to the landfill. And lithium's recyclable and reusable, and we have a crisis. And a lot of the, you know, also the people on the right, you know, like to say that, you know, lithium is hurting the environment and electric cars are bad and so on. And the reality is we can recover and reuse our lithium and that radically reduces the environmental footprint of lithium, but we don't wanna be sending it into landfills. There are actually landfill fires that are starting now because of all the the vape concentrations and probably other lithium batteries too, but there if you Google lithium fires landfill, you'll you'll find that that's happening just saying And they're nice and evenly distributed throughout the landfill. Right? Yeah. So it is a problem. I think you you missed a couple of important ones. I mean, there there's all this solid let's call it broadly solid waste, and what is the carbon footprint of that? And some of that's included in the paper, and there's certainly other literature, you know, as a whole discipline of looking at life cycle assessment. But, there's a kind of a gray zone between cultivation proper and putting it on the truck. And that's, again, like I mentioned before, refrigeration, curing, and also, downstream of that is extraction. And that is a huge area that we know almost nothing about It just hasn't been studied and written about. I really tried to bring that into the analysis, and I think it will be coming. I have I know some people who are trying to do more research on that now. But I did do one vignette that's in the supporting appendix of my report you can get online. It's not in the national numbers because I don't know on scale, but I looked at supercritical c o two, which was the one extraction process I could find information on, and it was stunning. About, the c o two footprint from the extraction process was about 50 times the weight of the flour. So 50 kilograms of c o two to the atmosphere per kilogram of flour going into the process. And that that, you know, is about actually, it's more than that. I'm sorry. It's about a 50 times. But it depends. So if you look at, like, what is that as a fraction of indoor footprint? It's like a 10% increase, 10% adder to the footprint we are talking about. But if you look at outdoor, it's 30% increase. Right? Because outdoors less less carbon intensive. Those are percentages, but it is arguably an outdoor grower can make a bigger marginal footprint on their, impact on their footprint by improving the extraction. And we just don't know. I mean, there's so many processes and we don't know the national magnitudes, but it's something that's just crying out for being looked at. It's not more important than the things we're talking about. But again, everything matters. So I don't know if those are helpful kind of conversations be you know, to address your your question. I'm happy to keep going. Yeah. It is. I I I would like us to, move a little bit further down the chain, into, so what it's grown, and it's stored, and it is extracted, and it is packaged. All things that we've hit on so far. But let's let's pick it up from that point. So, at this point, we're in transportation. So why don't you pick up the story line there? Yeah. So it it's harder to look at transportation because, again, data, you know, one thing vexing this whole process is there's no, you know, as a result of national criminalization and whatever else where funding is, there's there's not nearly as good a data on cannabis industry as there are on other industries. And and, of course, part of that problem is also the industry itself not sharing, you know, its data. But, you know, there are there are numbers out there and ways to look at it. And so I do look at that in the paper, and it's, you know, there's lots of transportation going on right through the whole life cycle. I mean, there's upfront transportation in the building of the facility, of course, in the delivery of all the inputs, the fertilizers, the the plastics, the clones, the whatever. And then there's people working and coming to and fro. There's landfill. So these things are broken out, you know, in the report. And then, like you said, at the end, of course, it goes into a distribution chain. And, some people have complained about the regulatory landscape making this worse because cannabis and this is gonna vary, you know, by state and even by jurisdiction. Right? But the more times you have to move it because of chain of not chain of custody, but, like, the way the the, stewardship, you know, is is dictated, it may have to go to to one level of distribution and then to another in certain processes in the in the, product life cycle are separated to different locations, whatnot. But there's transportation there. And, like, one one emerging thing that I just mentioned, but there's no you know, I couldn't get a handle on it with numbers is, door to door delivery. I mean, if you wanna really look, you know, at the whole ecosystem, you have to look at how it reaches consumer. That's the life cycle. And, certainly, door to door delivery is increasing. What is the net effect? I don't know. I mean, you can argue, that it might save some energy and certainly it's gonna defray some consumer trips. But, you know, there's a lot of talk now about the faster that people want their delivery, the more carbon footprint there is because they send single items out in a giant truck. And, you know, we've all had the experience with Amazon, and you order something and it's at your door the next day. And that means, you know, there were a lot of inefficiencies in getting that to your door because they're not they're not moving goods, large amounts of goods in one trip to one ZIP code. They're they're racing around with it. One piece of data you dropped that astonished me was that home delivery is 50% of cannabis sales now. And and, you know, I I I've never had delivery. Not that I wouldn't have it, but I live on on an island that's small in the Puget Sound. Right? And and but but I I was astonished that there's so much of it just being delivered. And and, you know, I kinda I kinda simmered on this. Kinda like, okay. So the the cannabis store is setting sending somebody to me with my cannabis. But but in the old days, I used to go to the house of my dealer, and so one way or another, somebody had to drive. And so, I can see how we put this on the industry as a whole. But to be fair, I don't I don't think we should we need to it'd be fair to put that on indoor. No. Agreed. And I tried to be careful in saying what is the net effect of this because you you have to look at the net effect and, you know, the the what is the alternative, and is that more or less carbon, and and we don't know. But, again, if something you know, if you're taking a 2,000 pound car to deliver, you know, an eighth somewhere and that's your only trip that you're making as opposed to a person who's ideally integrating that with some other trip, then there's obviously a difference. But I don't know. Also, just a small correction. So that 50%, that's a thought experiment in the paper to see what effect would that be. And that would if we got to 50%, we don't know what share. I don't know what share somebody would be doing. That's a good clarification. Thank you. There's a lot of scenarios in the paper that the the policy scenarios and the market scenarios saying, well, what if the market evolved in this way or that way, good or bad? Just how much do certain things move the needle? So that one, like, if 50% of sales were eventually conveyed by delivery services, total emissions would go up by about 4%, okay, from the total carbon footprint. So it's not the end of the world. This isn't, you know, the big knob at all. But we just have to look at all these things and and also, like, which ones are big and which ones are small. And the only way to do that is to go through, you know, exercises like this. So delivery is not in my study in in the in the numbers because we don't know, how much of it's going on. That's a good that's a good clarification. Is saved by, what the difference is between individual consumers going and getting it. Or, of course, there's the whole home cultivation part of this as well, which is it's whole, you know, separate discussion and that's included in the study. And there, you, you know, you save a lot of emissions. And so the if I'm remembering right, the home cultivation is about half the carbon footprint. Indoor cultivation is something like half the carbon footprint of of industrial, for a lot of reasons. And one of them is you you, you know, you have less transportation going on. You have, you know, you're not landfilling, things like that. Well, that's an interesting spin, Evan, that I did not pick up my first time through. That's actually a decent I, you know, I live in Washington where we're not allowed home grow. We're, like, one of the only people. There you go. Yeah. And, you know, the the fact that, it never occurred to me that that individual home, you know, a four by four tent home grow is going to be more efficient for my own cannabis needs than it is for me to buy it from, from a store and all the extra energy that's used by that cultivation. I usually just compare it the the indoor that I would buy at the store versus my outdoor. But the idea that my indoor, is more energy efficient surprises me. Can you tease that out a little bit more? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So so let's be sure to say can be. Can be. Fair enough. Okay. Uh-huh. The devil's always in the details. But, and and still, from my numbers, it's still about half the carbon footprint, which is still 2,000 times its weight in CO2. So, you know, keep it in perspective. It's an improvement. I mean, there we go back to your conversations, like, but what can we do? You know? And so this is something ostensibly that would make a big dent in it, but you're still left with a problem, you know, that's extraordinary. But the reasons are, you know, not everybody's air conditioning. There's less volume. You know, these indoor grows, as you see, you know, in the big pictures, the industrial ones, they're incredibly voluminous. And so you're, you know, you're not just lighting plants, you're heating and cooling and dehumidifying, you know, giant volumes of air. So, you know, that's a factor. The you know, it it also depends on the efficiency. Like, if, you know, you're using a heat pump at home and the indoor grower greenhouse is using gas heating that's at 80% efficiency, you know, that makes a difference. You don't have the interdiction or at least to the same level. And, you know, interdiction I mean, there's a lot of work upfront in this paper of looking at how much is grown versus how much makes it to the market because what doesn't make it to the market I'm not really changing the subject, but, you know, it's a part of this indoor grown thing. Again, it's colorful. Right? And so, you know, you have to take all the energy used to cultivate and divide that by the energy by the quantity of cannabis consumed at the end of the day. Right? That's the carbon footprint. You have to count all the energy whether it ends up in a given consumer's product or not because that's c o two to the atmosphere and it's energy being used. And so, you know, you've got so many forms of loss, including at home. I mean, if you lose a crop because you're you're not skilled, you know, and all of a sudden your four by four is full of mold, you just wasted, you know, sixty days of of electricity Mhmm. To get there. But, also, you know, there's like the product testing, which again, I'm not I'm not against, but product testing results in destroyed cannabis and you're not product testing when you grow at home. The the transportation some of the transportation involved, there's no dispensary being lit up. I mean, that's a small contrib Oh, that was a nice pun. Did you get that one? Yeah, I got that. So those are some factors. Not everyone has dehumidification. You don't have the large amounts of moisture all being concentrated. Maybe you dry it in your shower and you don't have showers off. You don't have, you know, an electric drying environment with dehumidifiers running. So, you know, it's those are the kinds of reasons why it seems like the home footprint. And then you're not going to landfill. You know, the laws that require and, you know, I'm not the laws that require landfilling also increase carbon emissions. It's very small, very, very small, but I had to calculate it and just look. And when you put a lot of biomass under the ground, especially if you have wet, you know, soaked mineral wool full of full of, pest fertilizer residues and roots and so on, you get methane. You know? And that's a greenhouse gas, and landfills are not not catching all the methane. So, anyway, that's not happening with with, home cultivation. As long as you compost it and it doesn't go anaerobic, you know, you're okay. That is an interesting thing you said about interdiction. You know, raising the, the energy consumption of overall cannabis because, they're like, hey. It was it was grown, and and if they just take it and let it mold in some closet somewhere, that that it's not getting it's not meeting needs in the market. And so it's they're essentially letting electricity usage mold. And so so interdiction is not good for the environment is a catchy idea. And it's not yeah. And it's not just, electricity. It's the fossil fuel, but it's also Energy. Yes. It's also all the but and beyond energy, it's all the other inputs, you know, to make the fertilizers and build the facilities. You know, you have to allocate all that energy somewhere. So, on the same token, you know, product contamination, which is the responsibility of the growers, results in destruction of product when that's intercepted. And overproduction is a gigantic problem, and that's not, you know, the the, you know, the government's fault. I mean, there are probably certain ways to blame the public sector on that, but but when you overproduce and it doesn't get to market, I mean, Canada Canada is destroying, you know, thousands of tons of cannabis every year. How come? That's just cause they're overproducing and you can't keep it, you know, more than a year or so. It loses THC and the CBD profile changes. Mhmm. And I mean, that's a whole separate conversation of why is this overproduction happening and I'm no expert in it, but I'm observing it. And I have not folded that into the study because we don't know how much of that's happening. But if you look, there's a lot of it discussed in the appendix of the paper, a lot of specific numbers and examples and industry reports, and it's giant amounts. And so, you know, you you have to look at you know, there's a lot of reasons that more is grown than is consumed. And then product recalls, you know, is something that happens, and I don't think it's happening much, which is arguably a problem. Right. But, but it's not that's not, again, a giant two digit effect, but it's just one of you know, it's an example of how to think about the gross production versus the net consumption and and who where that energy and and, emissions burden gets allocated. And then it brings us to an interesting point about legalization, which is, you know, a question that is everyone wants to ask as well, does legalization at the national scale solve climate problem? And we can talk about that now or now or later. But the, one thing it does avoid is the interdiction product destruction part of this puzzle, which again is a minor effect on the overall footprint, but it's not a trivial one. We'll come back to that, during the third set. I want to finish off this second set with, a, a a short discussion on, fertilizers. Specifically, on shaping fire, we are always teaching, wild crafting, regenerative agriculture, making your own compost, you know, using, local inputs, you know, things like that. And and, you know, of course, we're we're we're encouraging people. We're trying to coax them away, from, synthetics and a plus b fertilizers and petroleum derivatives and and, you know, this kind of, synthetification of of cannabis fertilizers. And, and and and certainly, there is some, energy usage with, regenerative as well. You know, it's still getting packaged some way. It's still being shipped in most cases. Not everybody's wild crafting. So so some of that is same between the both, but but but, you know, I I have an assumption that most of this, regenerative, soil amendments, because they are often in the form that they were in nature, you know, may maybe we need to crush the crab shell, but but it it but it is not like, you know, building an a plus b fertilizer profile that's just gonna, like, supercharge the plant. And so I'm I'm wondering how did how did those compare, the the the the growing inputs specifically that are related to nutrition. Yeah. Important point, and I would refer your, your listeners to the the widely, talked about article by Haley Summers and her colleagues from Colorado a couple years ago. And and that was the first real serious so called life cycle assessment of cannabis where they went through, you know, ammonium nitrate and triple super phosphate and potassium chloride and other soil amendments. And also, you know, neem oil and fungicides and other things. So they did all that math, and, I baked that into the work I'm doing. And so for the way that comes out oh, and by the way, let's talk about carbon dioxide, which is actually the largest single part of the non cultivation energy carbon footprint. So that's another input. And do you have that carbon dioxide is made industrially. And I don't wanna hear about, like, citing grows next to breweries. Yeah. Okay. You know, do that here and there. It's fine. Do it if you can, but we're just we're not gonna have Anheuser Busch, you know, putting cannabis grows next to all its Sure. Crappy beer factories. So so the I've got my spreadsheet, spun up while you were asking me this question. So the in this study, the carbon footprint from all these inputs that I just rattled off, also there's the mineral wool, right, which is what melted freaking rock. So so there's a lot of carbon and because there's a lot of energy in spinning mineral wool into these cubes that are used once and are generally not recyclable and go straight to landfill. That's actually the second largest Well, no. Sorry. There's there's other ones that are other soil amendments are more important. But at any rate, the, so if you look at the inputs as a as a percentage, as a ratio to the energy carbon for cultivation. The inputs add are about a third more. So it it's significant. If you look at the whole ball of wax, all the transportation, everything, about 20% of all the national emissions from cannabis are from the the inputs. That's actually also averaging together indoor and outdoor and and all of it. So certain sub slices might be, might be more or less. So it does matter, but bottom line, it certainly matters. And the, you know, and again, you're also sending stuff to landfill instead of composting. So there's other reasons that you know better than I do of why closing these loops can can really help. You just wanna be sure not to make methane in your compost pile because then you're really shooting yourself in the foot if it goes anaerobic because it methane's an extremely potent, greenhouse gas. But like I said, the biggest problem is c o two, and, you know, it's it's the biggest single additional carbon footprint, you know, element beyond the the energy itself. The creation of these, petroleum based fertilizers, I must admit, I don't exactly know how they are, made because they've just never been attracted to me or attractive to me. How does that fertilizer creation process compare with, you know, the regenerative way of just collecting natural items to mix into our soil? Yeah. That's above my pay grade. I don't you know, it's not my my specialty. Uh-huh. But it's it there's a lot of literature out there on it and, you know, and there's a lot of fossil fuel. And, you know, the the making of nitrate, you know, in particular is of is known to be, you know, very energy intensive, process. I bet you that there is a rich area for study down that rabbit hole too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So okay. So let's go ahead and take our, second commercial break. When we come back in set three, I wanna talk more about some of the perspectives, that are needed and and some of them that you mentioned during the first set, which I found to be very valuable. So so, you are listening to Shaping Fire, and my guest today is, energy and environmental systems analyst Evan Mills. And, you know, without these advertisers, Shaping Fire would not happen. So please support them and let them know you heard them on Shaping Fire. 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I invite you to follow my two Instagram profiles and participate online. The Shaping Fire Instagram has follow-up posts to Shaping Fire episodes, growing and processing best practices, product trials, and of course, gorgeous flower photos. The Shango Loast Instagram follows my travels on cannabis garden tours, my successes and failures in my own garden, insights and best practices from personal grows everywhere, and always gorgeous flower photos. On both profiles, the emphasis is on sharing what I've learned in a way that you can replicate it in your own garden, your own hash lab, or for your own cambidopathic health. So I encourage you to follow at shaping fire and at shango lows and join our online community on Instagram. Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire. I am your host, Shango Los. And my guest today is energy and environmental systems analyst, Evan Mills. So Evan, you know, I have had to hold myself, as host several times during the show because I have gone my whole life defending cannabis from from people who wanted to tell me it was a a drug with no medical use, and and people who said I shouldn't be around it because of the law, and then people who are telling me that we shouldn't grow it because I don't have a license. And then, you know, it's it's it's it's one thing after another where I have been been trying and and all of those with me. Right? All of all of my cannabis family, we're we've all so used to defending cannabis and defending ourselves and defending our rights and and trying to get people to understand that this herb is healing of the mind, soul, and body. And and so, you know, talking about cannabis in the way that we have today, I'm also cannabis. And and and I think that part of the big shift that has to happen is is messaging to come through for people to understand that we can still love cannabis, swear by it, defend it, and also be responsible for the energy usage that our, you know, favorite plant is using and and, you know, unfortunately, the poor way that it's being implemented bureaucratically. But I think at the core of it, somehow those of us who love it need to split from identifying the cannabis as ourselves and instead understand that it it's time for us to work, with the plant in a way so that we're not abusing the environment to get the part of it that we like. You just answered your own question beautifully. What's the next question? No. Give it your own context, please. I mean, you you set that up really well and rationally. And, look, you know, I grew up, I was born in 1960. I grew up in the fabled Laurel Canyon. I used to go as to Cheech and Chong's kids, Halloween parties. I live in Northern California now in the Redwoods. I'm a a organic gardener, not of cannabis, but of, you know, I love my garden. I not against the plant or against, you know, people who who wanna use it. It's, you know, Jerry, the, Henry Ford, one of his, you know, many famous quotes was, everything can always be done better than it is. Be done better than it's done now. And that's Yeah. Part of what leads to innovation. And there's, you know, this guy and, you know, you're earlier, you were asking how LED lights can be done better, and that that is a valid thing, and it is something that's being chased. So I think just having the attitude of, let's be creative. Let's be smarter. Let's be sure we're current. Let's be not let our protectiveness you know, I I was listening to another podcast, and the guy, was in the industry, and he was opposing interstate transport, because he wanted to protect his local market. And, you know, it's a free country, at least for the moment. Just you have to be care you know, think big. You know? Think about the big picture. Do we really wanna oppose interstate commerce to protect with, you know, without any kind of counterweight to it? Because that's that's potentially gonna have an energy, you know, climate con consequences. Is it worth it? So I don't know if that's helpful, but, you know, those are some, I think, some thoughts. I the industry is also, to be honest, starting to do some of this on its own. You look at like, it's been some years now. You know, canopy growth in Canada closed gigantic indoor warehouses and transitioned, you know, to greenhouse. And, you know, there's more and more greenhouse coming. I mean, that's been one of the big changes since the 02/2012 study. Obviously, at that point, there was, you know, very little of these, you know, prodigious, you know, 300,000 square foot, you know, greenhouses happening. Now there are no panacea, and it's too bad that they have the word green in their name because they use a lot of dehumidification. Most of them use a lot of electric lighting, and still the artificial the, fossil based inputs and and all of that, but there is less energy. And there's and that there's a lot of optimization potential there for sure in the greenhouse type, you know, daylight. I mean, we're using daylight in our buildings. You know, there's a whole science around daylighting for humans and to use making more use of that. And the potential, for that pales compared to, you know, the cannabis potential. So getting smarter with greenhouses, I think, is a big one. They they lose so much energy, and they're almost always heated with natural gas. You know, that's that's more the convention. And, why do you have all this glass facing north? And on and on. You know, so there are people out there who are, you know, have been working not just in the cannabis space, but in indoor ag more generally to try to optimize greenhouses. But, you know, the cost of I I guess one thing I would add is that there's an enlightened self preservation argument here too because, you know, I mean, it can't here in Northern California, the out the growers used to call our local electric monthly energy bills. And, it's become a huge issue with profitability. And I would argue, it's some paper I haven't written yet, but I think the bankruptcies that we're seeing in the cannabis space are often tracing back, not necessarily solely, but in significant part to the energy spend. You know, you spend a lot of money upfront for all the capital. I mean, these lighting systems, these HVAC systems, and then if you wanna try to be green and putting in solar on top of that and water recovery from your waste air stream, so it's and then you operate and you're spending millions of dollars a month, can be, on energy. So it's a real pain point. So, you know, in part, industry is discovering this kind of the hard way, but I would I would hate to see a big boom and bust where we have all these, you know, abandoned warehouses with all this equipment that nobody else needs in them. And, so The boom and bust, I think, is, on on the menu for, California because it's already happening. Right? I I hope that we see this better in other states. And, earlier in in in this last run of words, you had mentioned that, you know, some of the things that, the industry is doing to improve, and it's really startling how low the bar is for a lot of the folks to make an impression. For example, you know, I was down in California as I often am, and, you know, I picked up some, regenerative, cannabis flower from Soul Spirit Garden. And I was just I was overjoyed and and made an Instagram post because they use, compostable dupe tubes and and, some kind of compostable paper ink, you know, for their for their boxes. And I was just floored to see something that existing because, you know, I I go into places all across the country, and I've I've not seen anybody do that that actively. And and here I am overjoyed and and, you know, all all love and support to soul spirit, but but we we need to see that from just one farm. Right? We need to see that with in in entire states, moving in this generation or in this general direction. I was also curious earlier, during second set, you you talked about some inherent market bias towards indoor that wasn't coming from the consumer. And, and I wanted to hit on that before we wrapped up. So would you would you kind of color that in for us? Because I'd like to hear those points. Sure. It's yeah. It's pretty interesting and disheartening to dig in a bit to, like, how the market's working in the regulatory sphere and and other aspects. One is that that we see here in California, and it's probably true in other states, I know it's true in other states varying by state, is that some of the legislation defers to well, first of all, some of the legislation, like for a while, Illinois was only allowing indoor cultivation. Full stop. In California, the legalization rec the recreational stage, left it to it was it was legalized statewide, but it left it to the jurisdictions, meaning counties and cities, to to color in, you know, what the policies were gonna be, and half of California by land area forbids outdoor cultivation. So they can't make it illegal because the state allows it to be legal, but they can force it to only be indoors. And one can have a conversation about why in the world that is. At the municipality level. Yeah. It could be city or county. So that's that's a a distortion. And then you have, this whole world of financial incentives, and I'm the first person to defend and argue for financial incentives for energy efficiency and and renewables. We typically think of them as utility rebates for better LED lighting in this industry, but there can be Rebates for rebates for sun grown. And exactly. So you put your finger on it. That's what's not happening. And so instead, you see I mean, you Google around. You'll see growers being handed these large, you know, table sized cardboard checks for a million dollars for putting in LED lights. Okay. Maybe. But what you're doing is you're subsidizing them to a large degree. I mean, these are giant rebates, and you're making their product even more competitive to to, out outdoor grown, to some ground. Feed feeding the wrong solution. Yeah. And so imagine if indoor sorry. If if outdoor producers were sorry. If current indoor producers were given an incentive like that to not get, 10% energy savings, but to get 99% energy savings by shifting to outdoor cultivation, and maybe that million dollar check should go to them. And at least level that playing field. You know, have no subsidies if you don't like subsidies or, you know, make it make it fair and reward all the good behavior and not just one. So there's that. And then I think lastly, you know, there's this issue of cities and the trend towards urban cultivation. And, you know, you don't I mean, you may notice because you're in the industry, but the average person driving around in a neighborhood with warehouses doesn't realize that there's, you know, a Walmart sized warehouse that they're driving by that's all cannabis. And they're there, you know, for sometimes the wrong reasons. They're being given, you know, sweetheart deals on their taxes or, you know, lower fees, whatever. And the cities want them there because the cities are getting local taxes and local permit fees. So it's a conflict of interest, and I don't pretend to know how often, you know, that's swaying things. But the cities have a conflict of interest in wanting the cannabis facilities there, which kind of by definition have to be indoors if they're in the urban fabric in this world, you know, in this country. And, and then but they're blowing up their carbon footprint at the same time by by drawing these entities because there are, like, there are outdoor growers from California who've moved to Oakland. You know? And then sometimes these growers, you know, get on a JAG and they blow out the p the utility transformers and they bring in diesel generators to run, you know, their grows in these low income environmentally overburdened areas. And I'm getting off track from your question, but it it's a the urban urbanization of cultivation Denver's got 200 factory scale grows in the, you know, in the core of Denver. Oakland has about 200 in their so called green zone. So, I think that's an issue, and, I think we can do better, you know, in that that the regulators have a role to play in, leveling the playing field and and not throwing obstacles in front of in front of industry doing the right thing. You mentioned that, you mentioned interstate commerce earlier. And, you know, we've all been joking since the since the metal early medical days that, it's kinda California versus everybody. Right? Like, as like like, if if you want to have a cannabis company in your state, you need to get up, you need to get efficient, and you need to lock in your customer base before interstate, sales is allowed because as because California's gonna eat everybody's lunch. And, you know, and there there's there's a lot to be said for that. And and then there there's a lot of challenges to be said for that too. But but you've looked at the numbers, and and and what do you see in your crystal ball as far as the impact of interstate commerce on the, you know, overall energy consumption, for the cannabis industry? I haven't been able to put numbers on that at this point. There's just not enough data, but there's a long discussion in the paper about how to think about it and all the kind of unexpected countervailing factors there and, you know, how much we would save or how much we wouldn't save. You know, there's a lot of as you mentioned, California is the big gorilla, and you think of all the, all the cannabis already. I mean, I think California produces like three times as much cannabis as Californians consume, something like that. So all that's going to other states. California is one of the cleaner states because we have a clean grid. And so if you do the thought experiment and say, well, now we have interstate commerce and we're gonna save all this carbon by having more local production, you have to subtract that you may just be bringing in the same cannabis that's just now on the legal side. So it's pretty tricky. This is pretty tricky. But I do that said, I think, you know, the the there's so much of The US that's suitable for, low carbon outdoor cultivation and, you know, interstate commerce is an obstacle to that and being able to flow, everywhere. And I just you know, I can't put numbers on it for you, but it's a big one. We did look at legalization more broadly kind of adjacent to the question you're asking, how much carbon might that save in its own right? And it's rather small. You know? It's difficult to model, difficult to think through. But, basically, the big benefit of legalization is less the landfill and or or I'm sorry. There's more landfill. That's an offsetting effect. Right? Because mandated landfill happens in the legal market, not in the other one. So there's, there's some ways in which it can increase emissions while the packaging is one that you mentioned before. You know, there's, one new paper says there's more packaging in regulated markets than in the illicit market and in pre, preregulated markets. But also on the upside, you have, from legalization, you have you you're taking the interdiction out of it. And so all that cannabis that's destroyed and all that embodied energy and carbon is in principle, you know, in in a rarefied case, not happening anymore. So that's so it's something like an 8% reduction in national carbon footprint from legalization in its own right. But that said, legalization is kind of a necessary but not sufficient milepost on the route to all kinds of other policies. Right? You can't incentivize better practices in an illicit market. And today, right now, about the carbon about little more than half of the national carbon footprint is in the illicit market and a little less than half is in the legal market, by the way. So there's a lot there's a lot to address still. Yeah. There is a lot to address. On the other side, but it's interesting how that comes out. It's not necessarily obvious that it would break down like that. Much more of the production is in the illicit market, but also the illicit market has a much larger share of outdoor than the legal market does. So that's part of why, even though, you know, 75, 80 percent of the production is in the illicit side nationally, the, the carbon footprints are more more fifty fifty ish because there's more outdoor in the illicit side. So to to wrap us up here, we have given folks a whole lot of data points and perspectives, and so many of them, you know, they they they're lubricated, and they've got pivot points, and they depend on the so so it can be it's very much a, you know, a complex web, and and as you address this, then the other part moves. And so let's let's let's distill this down to, some, I don't know, marching orders or or a loving suggestion It's probably a little less authoritarian. So for for the two key groups who who we're talking to now. Right? Because, obviously, we'd have a lot to say for the politicians, but they're probably not still listening to the episode. The people who are listening are cannabis consumers and, and, the cannabis business owners, the cultivators. And so, let's take the business first, and then we'll talk about then then we'll talk to the consumers. So so, you know, if if if if a indoor cultivator and they've got their heart in the right place, and they have just heard our conversation, and they're like, damn. I think that at the very least, I need to start doing stuff to decrease my energy consumption. It'll be better for the company, and it'll be better for the environment. And I I wanna help there be a planet for my kids. Okay? So they're they're they're heading their hearts in the right place, but they already have an indoor, they already have an indoor cultivation. And so what would you give to them as the first steps on a path that are attainable? Yeah. Good good questions. And and I have to say, you know, I've had a lot of emails and things from producers over the years, and, more than a handful have said they've changed their business model. You know, they've looked at this and over time, they've shifted their their industry towards, you know, greenhouse and then outdoors. So in a strategic longer term term way, there's no shame in that, and it's something that's done all the time. And you can look at the large industries, and they're definitely shifting their, you know, their center of gravity from from indoor towards outdoor. So there's that. The longer term, I think, nearer term, you know, look at get the energy audits, you know, really look at your processes, think about I don't wanna say greedy, but, like, maximizing yield, you know, is it everything? Run numbers more carefully because maximum yield isn't necessarily maximum profitability, you know. Like, things are you know, it's expensive to push, you know, a crop, and I'm not pretending I know more than these cultivators who've spent their, you know, their professional lives, you know, dialing this in. But but be sure you've got good info, good advice. Think twice at it. Think twice about, you know, your your current practices. Think about Henry Ford and how you can do better. So I think that's as a as a near term about as good as we can get. And, And then so how about the consumer then? Because, you know, the consumer, it's interesting because the consumer is both the most powerful and the least powerful. Right. They're they're at the end of the long chain, so it's really hard to influence any of it. But because it's all being made for us, it actually does empower us. But I definitely don't think that, consumers are using their power at all. So so what would you say to us as consumers about some kind of action we can take to to to to move the the the percentages in the right direction? Yeah. I think the consumer is doesn't realize their power in as in so many cases. Right? Energy, climate more broadly, and and all kinds of other issues. So I think talk to your budtender, ask questions, be curious, ask for, you know, ask for data on your prod on the different products, make it known that it it matters to you. And, you know, consumers can change their behavior and that changes the market, and there are consumers, it sounds like like yourself, you know, who who, prefer Sungrown and, hunt for the product that's just right for them. Or, I mean, I don't think it's even necessary, but come down and auction quality, whatever. It's just or make quality part of your definition of sorry. Make environment part of your definition of quality. Right? It's that doesn't seem like a stretch. Like, what is quality? What is quality of life? Isn't part of quality of life being, you know, not having our our homes burned in wildfire seriously, you know. So so I think the consumers, you know, being aware and educating themselves in is hard. Right? Because there's very little information out there for them and and it's not being provided by industry. I think also being aware of greenwashing, you know, there's a lot of greenwashing, unfortunately. I have a page on my site that your listeners are welcome to look at with examples of the greenwashing that happens. And it shouldn't be on the consumer to root that out and, clean that up. But, unfortunately, there aren't really regulators, you know, going after this, but that that's a a problem for consumers is, even like the notion of terroir, you know, like so we've got cannabis grown in a windowless factory, not in soil with no sun, no rain in California, in in, Arcadia, you know, and it's called Humboldt. You know, like, what is what is that? So, maybe there's something there that I'm not understanding, you know. I guess the water, but the water has been so heavily treated by the time it gets there. So I think that's something for consumers. And, you know, and back to the producers for a second, I think another thing they can do is, I mean, it's under this banner of being curious and inquisitive and also forthcoming. You know, share data, work with researchers, you know, benchmark your carbon footprint against your competitors and see, like, well, how am I doing? Because benchmarking is a really powerful tool to see, well, what what are other people? What are the best practices out there? And, you know, go for those. There is a lot of documentation on best practices within indoor, within greenhouse. So I think that's something to do. And consider product labeling, especially if you're doing better, you know, then get the word out there and work with the dispensaries and work with these the value chain to get transparency for consumers. And if consumers are asking for it and producers are pushing it, then consumers will start to be more informed about, you know, about carbon footprint. So that's something that everyone, you know, all the actors, from the regulators to the growers to the consumers, could do more in because it's pitiful. You know, there's just there's such an information vacuum facing, everybody, you know, all from soup to nuts there. Right on. Well, thank you, Evan. You know, we easily could have done a couple more hours on this topic, but we you know, the goal was not to inundate people too much, but but to really illustrate to folks, you know, how how tenacious energy consumption is all through, the chain and to start having us think about it whether our our end goal is to actually electrical usage in our present operation as step one, I think that is, you know, it's an honorable pursuit. And, and even though we don't wanna look at anything that is, you know, chastising of cannabis, well, I I think it's I think it's damn time. So thank you so much for giving up your personal time to join us today on shaping fire and to to share your, like, wildly in-depth understanding of the data behind our industry. Your your your stories, your insight, and definitely your good share are definitely appreciated. My pleasure. Thanks for your great questions. Excellent. So dear listener, if you would like to follow-up, and learn even more from from Evan Mills, the best way to do that is to go to his website, which is is kinda like a, it's kinda like a repository of of his research, and the the graphics there are just absolutely educational and, illustrative and fantastic. So so even if you're not even if you wanna know more, but you're not in the mood to read a whole bunch, by goodness gracious, go to his website and look at the graphs. You'll learn so much so fast. So, the website for that is evan, e v a n, dash mills, m I l l s, dot com. Evan mills dot com. And also, if you are driving or something, you can, definitely go to the shaping fire website for this episode, number one twenty, and, and you can grab the link there. You can find more episodes of the Shaping Fire podcast and subscribe to the show at shapingfire.com and wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you would leave a positive review of the podcast wherever you download. Your review will help others find the show so they can enjoy it too. On the Shaping Fire website, you can also subscribe to the newsletter for insights into the latest cannabis news, exclusive videos, and giveaways. On the Shaping Fire website, you will also find transcripts of today's podcast as well. Be sure to follow on Instagram for all original content not found on the podcast. That's at shaping fire and at shango lows on Instagram. Be sure to check out Shaping Fire YouTube channel for exclusive interviews, farm tours, and cannabis lectures. Does your company wanna reach our national audience of cannabis enthusiasts? Email hotspot@shapingfire.com to find out how. Thanks for listening to Shaping Fire. I've been your host, Shango Los.