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Post #1
The plant hemp seems to have not gotten any attention in the last few years, with the stresses being put on the planet's oil reserve reaching peak level it seems that hemp would be the perfect alternative, its uses cover:
Food
Nutrition
Medicine
Fiber
Building material
Use with plastics
Paper
Fabric
Cordage (rope etc)
Water and soil purification
Weed control
and most importantly: A fuel source.
My question is: can it really be the answer to a lot of our problems? It produces 25 tonnes of material per hectare per year, grows pretty much anywhere in the world and is useful as a fuel source. I understand the illegality through the cotton industry several years ago, but are there really any downsides or arguments against it other than 'it can make a drug that might make you lazy!!!!'
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Cold-pressed hemp seed oil, has all of the health benefits AND MORE when compared to olive oil, soy milk, etc.
You can eat it as is, or you can mix it with salad, or basically any other food. Just don't preferably use it as a frying oil.
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No, it can not. While hemp does have some uses, there are cheaper, quicker, and more effective products for many of the items you listed. It creates a very poor rope, only a very small percentage of the crop can actually be used to create paper, as a building material it is relatively weak, and can not function as a nutritionally significant source of food. As for using it as a fuel source, it would be incredibly ineffective and expensive when there are much cheaper alternatives available that don't require the use of arable land.
Edit: I am not saying it has no uses for food, by the way, but it certainly wouldn't solve any problems relating to that.
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Yes. The only reason hemp was originally pushed down was propaganda by the media - they believed increased usage would increase the cost of paper.
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"people give DBS shit all the time but he's really a good guy and i'm glad he's my friend" -no one
March 2009
17,013 Posts
as for the oil argument, you realise that you're only going to get as much out of it as you put into it right?
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no because when u put hemp oil in cars everyones just gunna get high and stupid that are near the cars
Seriously though, the reason it was pushed so hard that hemp is such a bad thing is because it was too good of a resource. It probably is one of the single most useful crops, and the reason it was deemed "bad" and wasn't used was because the paper market would have been completely overthrown by the use of pressed hemp paper, which would have been much cheaper. If by any chance someone could undo the years of slanderous propaganda about hemp, or even just the male plant which does not produce the actual medicinal flower, it could very easily become one of the best resources we have.
If.
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why are you stating the obvious, also its a renewable resource so technically you can put infinite amounts into it and get infinite amounts out of it, in the long term
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"people give DBS shit all the time but he's really a good guy and i'm glad he's my friend" -no one
March 2009
17,013 Posts
because it isn't as efficient as just extracting energy directly from sunlight with solar panels
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What do you think photosynthesis is?
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Why not use multiple methods, we don't necessarily have to stick to one you know.
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I thought hemp ropes were proven to be stronger than most other types of rope.
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thisss
i do not understand when people fight over which is better, i mean hell even a mix between gas solar and hemp would work.... or gas an solar or wind solar hemp or what ever.
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If you have a set amount of money to spend on energy sources, why spend half of it on something that's less efficient?
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AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
Nope, hemp was supplanted by other types of ropes as early as the 18th century. Hemp also had a tendency to rot horribly.
Artificial fibres of today are not only much stronger, but resistant to rot as well and cheaper to manufacture.
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Lol, hemp as food, you do realize that that would only make people more hungry and require more food.
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"hurr" ?
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But with the effects compared to alcohol (long term and short term) which would you rather choose? I personally choose weed.
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you better be joking
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There are a lot of reasons. Investors like to spread the risk, hedge their bets, so it makes more sense from a financial risk standpoint to invest into multiple technologies regardless of how each individual one pans out. Also competition stimulates innovation and productivity. Having multiple sources for the same thing benefits everybody.
Also you're always going to have people who are set in their ways and support one ideal over the other, and that's fine, so you've got the guys pushing for hydrogen fuel stations, then you got the ones pushing for solar, wind, ocean current, and tidal power sources, then you got people in favor of nuclear energy, the safe, reliable, proven working solution, and of course there's more. There's no reason this all shouldn't be happening at the same time, because none of us can predict the future and who knows which one will help the most, or who knows if we can even survive without all of them put together?
Internal combustion technology was being developed as early as was possible, people didn't just say "why waste time with those inefficient gasoline cars? we have electric cars". People actively developed both routes because there's no way of knowing what the future holds.
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Hemp is not that great, its legal over here and hardly anyone uses it
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Y'know, if hemp is such a valuable resource with many utilities, then it'd likely be used if the world ends up with an absence of resources. Even pig-headed dogma won't be an excuse in the wasteland, so it'd be either grow hemp in the badlands or starve in the dust.
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electric cars are also alot better than people think... yet hardly anyone uses them... notice a pattern?
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Yeah, expensive and inefficient things aren't wise investments
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Tell that to all the heavy war-bows and seige crossbows that had hemp strings.
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That's fantastic and all, but this is the year 2012. I don't care that it made a relatively good rope hundreds of years ago, today there are far superior alternatives.
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a great electric car goes for about $52 000 canadian
and they aren't inefficient
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Where do you live where $52,000 is not an enormous sum of money for a car?
They are weaker than combustion-engine cars, they take a very long time to recharge, the batteries are expensive and must be replaced every 6 or 7 years, and electric cars aren't even all that "green" due to the source of the electricity and everything that is required to make the batteries.
Edited:
but regardless, this is not the thread for electric car discussion
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I use hemp to get high
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What do you like smoke a pound at a time?
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I think it is completely irrelevant
Edited:
Cars aren't as cheap in most of the world as they are in the U.S, for a number of reasons. 52,000 is a very nice price for a new car where I live. And they are still greener than traditional combustion-engine cars.
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AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
Actually they used animal sinew and hair. This included human hair as well sometimes. Steel was also used to make the strings for crossbows by the tail end of the medieval era.
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"people give DBS shit all the time but he's really a good guy and i'm glad he's my friend" -no one
March 2009
17,013 Posts
inefficient
Edited:
hardly anyone uses them because
a) the batteries don't hold that much charge. range is about a hundred miles or so
b) the infrastructure isn't there. you can't recharge at a petrol station
c) they're expensive
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Basically that. The only way it can work is hybrid or as a second car for short journeys. It would take several days to do lands end- john o'groats. But as has been said this is not the electric car thread.
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Synthetic alternatives are fantastic and all, but they require a more complex and synthetic-reliant production process that is probably not going to be economically viable forever.
While hemp shouldn't be a staple fiber product, it should remain in production and be bred to be increasingly better
Edited:
Animal sinew was used by natives of many regions but its a low-yield product better suited to hunters, people who already have access to sinew. IIRC human hair wasn't used often if it was used at all, not much to go on other than myth.
Hemp, linen and silk were the predominant bowstring materials for heavy bows as they are both readily available and can hold a few hundred pounds of force on each end when brought into a flemish twist.
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AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
However those materials have now been greatly supplanted by superior versions. Also if hemp can be improved upon as a renewable fibre, why not silk? Silk is the worlds strongest natural fibre.
Also remember that flax and silk are superior to hemp in their own ways.
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Silk is a great material but it's price is quite representative of it's production. Nothing wrong with linen either but flax, like hemp is not suitable for staple production.
I'm not saying "hemp is the best thing evar and all crops should be hemp" but to say hemp isn't a very product is pretty ridiculous. It should be used and should be continuously bred to be better.
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Hemp is very useful for a single plant.
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Breaking news: Photosynthesis isn't effective, world is fucked, more at 11.
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You cannot get high off hemp, like Nick Nack said it is outlawed because it is an amazing resource, hell go look at the things our founding fathers have said about the hemp plant.
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AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
The idea is it an amazing resource is a rather narrow one. Hemp has its uses, but it cannot be used for everything when a huge number of alternatives that are superior in every way exist already.
