From trade-journal UtilityDIVE:
Legalized marijuana initiatives could drive power demand
The legal marijuana industry is beginning to have broader impacts on the electricity sector, outside of traditional epicenters like the Pacific Northwest and California. Florida, which has struggled to integrate more renewable energy sources, could be facing an uptick in demand driven by cannabis producers.
This week voters in California, Nevada, and Massachusetts, Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas approved a range of marijuana legalization initiatives.
For some comparison,growing four mature marijuana plants consumes about as much power as running 29 refrigerators around the clock.It is a remarkably energy-intensive industry, but because it was has been illegal for years, many operations choose to work inside. That is leading to development of a cottage industry surrounding cultivation and more efficient lighting.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council believes regional demand from producers in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, could reach almost 250 MW by 2035. Efforts to rein in some of that demand have been hampered by federal laws which still have marijuana as a Schedule 1 restricted drug, making it difficult for utilities to fund efficiency measures.
Geee Whiz - if we hadn't taken all of our baseload generating capacity offline (ie: Clean Coal), we would not be having this problem.
The article also links to this article about power in Oregon: Marijuana grow houses trigger 7 summer outages for Pacific Power
What do we want? NUCLEAR When do we want it? YESTERDAY