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You’ve been able to have shipping containers of the stuff delivered from China and other places to your loading dock for decades. They grow millions upon milli

You’ve been able to have shipping containers of the stuff delivered from China and other places to your loading dock for decades. They grow millions upon millions of tons of it each year and have an entire infrastructure of university and government research organizations built up around hemp cultivation. The industrial products are never coming. Access by US domestic engineers and scientists to hemp on the order of days instead of weeks won’t change that. There are billions of people on earth for which hemp cultivation has never been illegal, where they have grown it for centuries if not millennia. To think that domestic production will spin up the release of industrial products can only lead to one of two conclusions: 1. There are no industrial uses of hemp to the degree that advocates claim. (The ludicrous ones) or, 2. Most of rest of the world, around 3 billion people, are all stupid and/or incompetent and only the smart and industrious US domestic engineers and scientists can figure out how to use hemp for things other than hippy bags. I’ve been around the world. I’m going to go with 1. I’m not saying hemp doesn’t have industrial uses. I’m saying that the claims by some of its more fervent activists, on the order of “hemp fuel will power hemp steel-manufactured flying cars adorned in hemp faux “Rich Corinthian“ leather, that land of runways made of hempcrete and it’s all going to be carbon neural and organic because hemp violates the laws of thermodynamics and doesn’t require fertilizer or pesticide” are wrong.

throwaway1777 7y ago
You left out the option that the industrial hemp products are more expensive (at this point) so only niche producers use it. I think hemp will see some industrial usage when it becomes cost effective.
- draw_down 7y ago
  I dunno, GP is raising some solid points. Why hasn’t this happened in places where the government didn’t clamp down on it?
- neaden 7y ago
  How much is industrial hemp used in countries where it has always been legal though?
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    But what countries are that? As far as I know, most followed US hegemony, and for example in germany it was legal, but very hard to get permission to grow hemp. So only small uses like for making rope and birdfood. So I also believe demand and supply for various things will grow. I really like for example, that nowdays you can get organic hemp seeds in the supermarket. It gets more in fashion, because it is nice and quite healthy. But no, hemp will probably not disrupt big industries. It might disrupt the alcohol industrie a bit though, when it is widespread legal.
    - neaden 7y ago
      The Soviet Union grew it quite extensively, and I believe both Canada, France, and Australia have allowed its growing for a couple decades now. It doesn't seem like in any of those countries it has lived up to the potential pro-hemp boosters claim.
oblib 7y ago
It's a lot easier to grow hemp than build out the manufacturing infrastructure to produce products with it, so this glut should have been expected. "There are no industrial uses of hemp to the degree that advocates claim." That's a leap too far, especially considering the current chaotic state of the laws governing its use. There are surely advocates that also make leaps too far but the truth about the potential resides in the known uses, which are many, and those yet to come, which are also likely to be many. Since China has a head start working on this we can assume it's likely they will be leaders in both hemp production and manufacturing hemp based products, and we can only blame ourselves if they are. But that still doesn't mean that the U.S won't invest in processing hemp grown here into useful and profitable products and when it does the cost and profits of production will stabilize.
- vkou 7y ago
  > That's a leap too far, especially considering the current chaotic state of the laws governing its use. As the parent poster said, in most of the rest of the world, there are no such laws governing its use, and for some reason, nobody in it really has much of a need for this 'miracle' plant. How do you explain that?
  - oblib 7y ago
    Before I commented I did a google search on hemp laws in China and they have very strict laws on it there. And we have strict laws on what can be imported here, so I'm not really sure what the parent poster is talking about. Basically we can import stalks and seeds that can't germinate here. I don't know what those sell for but it's probably pretty hard to beat the price of what could be grown here legally. Levi corporation announced just this year a line of the jeans and other clothes to be made with hemp. I think they're being made offshore but the point that it will take time for industries to ramp up for using hemp is made by that single case alone. The market for it will surely grow from this point and likely peak and stabilize pretty quickly and, no, it won't be a "get rich bonanza" for farmers because it will grow almost anywhere here but it will be another crop they can grow and sell and that's good thing.
Animats 7y ago
Right. Somehow the hemp enthusiasts never seem to be interested in the other bast fibers - flax, jute, kenaf, manila, etc. Those all have major industrial uses. Hemp - just doesn't. Hemp rope went out towards the end of the sailing ship era, when manila, which doesn't rot from the inside out, was found. The real action now seems to be in bagasse, the leftover strands after extracting sugar from sugar cane. It's a waste product from sugar mills, so it's really cheap, sometimes free. It's made into biodegradable containers for fast food, replacing styrofoam. Many of those little white clamshell boxes used for food delivery are now made from bagasse. It's also possible to make oriented strand board from bagasse, although that hasn't really caught on. There's huge amounts of agricultural waste available very cheaply, if you have a use for it. Ethanol fuel from cellulose was a hot idea once, as a way to do something useful with corn cobs and stalks, but it's just not cost-effective.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  I dunno, back in college I was reliably informed by a white kid in dreadlocks and a "Legalize It" t-shirt that hemp has lots of industrial uses.

throwaway1777 7y ago

You left out the option that the industrial hemp products are more expensive (at this point) so only niche producers use it. I think hemp will see some industrial usage when it becomes cost effective.

draw_down 7y ago
I dunno, GP is raising some solid points. Why hasn’t this happened in places where the government didn’t clamp down on it?
neaden 7y ago
How much is industrial hemp used in countries where it has always been legal though?
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  But what countries are that? As far as I know, most followed US hegemony, and for example in germany it was legal, but very hard to get permission to grow hemp. So only small uses like for making rope and birdfood. So I also believe demand and supply for various things will grow. I really like for example, that nowdays you can get organic hemp seeds in the supermarket. It gets more in fashion, because it is nice and quite healthy. But no, hemp will probably not disrupt big industries. It might disrupt the alcohol industrie a bit though, when it is widespread legal.
  - neaden 7y ago
    The Soviet Union grew it quite extensively, and I believe both Canada, France, and Australia have allowed its growing for a couple decades now. It doesn't seem like in any of those countries it has lived up to the potential pro-hemp boosters claim.

oblib 7y ago

It's a lot easier to grow hemp than build out the manufacturing infrastructure to produce products with it, so this glut should have been expected. "There are no industrial uses of hemp to the degree that advocates claim." That's a leap too far, especially considering the current chaotic state of the laws governing its use. There are surely advocates that also make leaps too far but the truth about the potential resides in the known uses, which are many, and those yet to come, which are also likely to be many. Since China has a head start working on this we can assume it's likely they will be leaders in both hemp production and manufacturing hemp based products, and we can only blame ourselves if they are. But that still doesn't mean that the U.S won't invest in processing hemp grown here into useful and profitable products and when it does the cost and profits of production will stabilize.

vkou 7y ago
> That's a leap too far, especially considering the current chaotic state of the laws governing its use. As the parent poster said, in most of the rest of the world, there are no such laws governing its use, and for some reason, nobody in it really has much of a need for this 'miracle' plant. How do you explain that?
- oblib 7y ago
  Before I commented I did a google search on hemp laws in China and they have very strict laws on it there. And we have strict laws on what can be imported here, so I'm not really sure what the parent poster is talking about. Basically we can import stalks and seeds that can't germinate here. I don't know what those sell for but it's probably pretty hard to beat the price of what could be grown here legally. Levi corporation announced just this year a line of the jeans and other clothes to be made with hemp. I think they're being made offshore but the point that it will take time for industries to ramp up for using hemp is made by that single case alone. The market for it will surely grow from this point and likely peak and stabilize pretty quickly and, no, it won't be a "get rich bonanza" for farmers because it will grow almost anywhere here but it will be another crop they can grow and sell and that's good thing.

Animats 7y ago

Right. Somehow the hemp enthusiasts never seem to be interested in the other bast fibers - flax, jute, kenaf, manila, etc. Those all have major industrial uses. Hemp - just doesn't. Hemp rope went out towards the end of the sailing ship era, when manila, which doesn't rot from the inside out, was found. The real action now seems to be in bagasse, the leftover strands after extracting sugar from sugar cane. It's a waste product from sugar mills, so it's really cheap, sometimes free. It's made into biodegradable containers for fast food, replacing styrofoam. Many of those little white clamshell boxes used for food delivery are now made from bagasse. It's also possible to make oriented strand board from bagasse, although that hasn't really caught on. There's huge amounts of agricultural waste available very cheaply, if you have a use for it. Ethanol fuel from cellulose was a hot idea once, as a way to do something useful with corn cobs and stalks, but it's just not cost-effective.

smacktoward 7y ago
I dunno, back in college I was reliably informed by a white kid in dreadlocks and a "Legalize It" t-shirt that hemp has lots of industrial uses.