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Hemp


kevbone

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Hemp

 

Industrial hemp has many uses, including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, health food, and fuel. It is one of the fastest growing biomasses known, and one of the earliest domesticated plants known. It also runs parallel with the "Green Future" objectives that are becoming increasingly popular. Hemp requires little to no pesticides, no herbicides, controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces oxygen. Furthermore, hemp can be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper (the processing of which uses bleaches and other toxic chemicals, and contributes to deforestation), cosmetics, and plastics, most of which are petroleum-based and do not decompose easily.

 

Biofuels such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel can be made from the oils in hemp seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole, respectively. The energy from hemp may be high based on acreage or weight, but can be low based on the volume of the light weight harvested hemp.It does, however, produce more energy per acre per year than corn, sugar, flax, or any other crop currently grown for ethanol or biodiesel.

 

Henry Ford grew industrial hemp on his estate after 1937, possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain. He made plastic cars with wheat straw, hemp and sisal. (Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1941, "Pinch Hitters for Defense.") In 1892, Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine, which he intended to fuel "by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils."

 

 

Industrial Hemp is produced in many countries around the world. Major producers include Canada, France, and China. While the Hemp is imported to the United States more than to any other country, the United States Government does not distinguish between marijuana and non-psychoactive Cannabis used for industrial and commercial purposes.

 

Why is that?

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Hemp is a bitch to harvest. The market for it is small and fickle. When Canada relegalized hemp cul;tivation a lot of farmers tried it out, many of them lost money on it or got out of the business pretty quickly because of the hassles involved.

 

Hops are a completely legal crop and suffer from many of the same issues. Did you know there is currently a global hop shortage?

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Hemp is a bitch to harvest.

 

Is it as much as a bitch to harvest as say.....oil?

 

Yes. Energy return on energy invested for oil is currently around 40:1 while for hemp oil it is less than 5:1. (and note: 1.3:1 for corn ethanol and around 20:1 for tropical sugarcane ethanol)

Not counting the economic costs of global warming with oil and deforestation with tropical sugarcane.

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Hemp is a bitch to harvest.

 

Is it as much as a bitch to harvest as say.....oil?

 

Yes. Energy return on energy invested for oil is currently around 40:1 while for hemp oil it is less than 5:1. (and note: 1.3:1 for corn ethanol and around 20:1 for tropical sugarcane ethanol)

 

Does that include the footprint left behind from getting and processing it?

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