Hemp, Alcohol, and the Environment

Very interesting article on hemp. I add two things. First, I have been told that if farmers who are growing millions of acres of corn for alcohol production switch to growing hemp, they would increase their output per ton of crop produced by 10 times. It has something to do with the density of nitrocellulose in hemp verses corn.

Decreasing the cost of alcohol by a factor of 10 could make burning it instead of gas in our cars much cheaper, especially for local driving. This should be much easier on our environment as alcohol burns cleaner than gas and hemp production doesn’t require as much fertilizer — it’s a weed!

Second, because it looks identical to marijuana the crop will have to be inspected rigorously for compliance to laws. (Sorry Abel Maldonado, you don’t get special treatment because you were in politics.)