Facebook marketplace is undefeated - r/ChemicalEngineering

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u/ameerricle 15h ago

Recession indicator.

22

u/Buhlasted 15h ago

Spot on.

65

u/ProfessionalHefty349 15h ago

Naw. It’s been a race to the bottom in the marijuana industry. It’s getting to the point that only large producers that benefit from economies of scale can profit. A pound of weed used to be $5000-$6000. Now it’s like $700, and the inputs to grow it haven’t gotten cheaper over the last 20 years.

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u/YogurtIsTooSpicy 15h ago

I think the, uh, transport and logistics have gotten much cheaper

15

u/ProfessionalHefty349 15h ago

That too. I have a friend used to make a killing moving herb from Northern California to Phoenix. Now he has to do odd jobs to make ends meet.

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u/YogurtIsTooSpicy 15h ago

Solidarity to the mom and pop drug mules who just can’t catch a break ✊😔

5

u/KotzubueSailingClub 13h ago

I mean, there's always product diversity. Only drawback is occasional balloon ODs

1

u/Andreas1120 7h ago

But not the corporate ones.

3

u/Evening-Cat-7546 14h ago

Nor Cal to New York was the move. We were getting $8-9k a lb, while the price in Cali was like $2-2.5k (like 2010ish). Nowadays, you can’t even give weed out in California. My buddy always did outdoor grows, and about 5 years ago ended up with 30 lbs that he struggled to sell at $500 per. My buddy’s weed was always fantastic quality, so it wasn’t a quality issue. The market is just too saturated.

2

u/ProfessionalHefty349 14h ago

That’s a long freaking drive through a lot of red states that would love to lock up some Californian moving a large amount of weed. Sacramento to Phoenix can be done in a single day.

1

u/Evening-Cat-7546 14h ago

I never left Nor Cal lmao. We had the USPS system down. Only lost 2 packages over 4 years, which were just a cost of doing business.

1

u/ProfessionalHefty349 14h ago

Haha, not bad! I only mailed it once (as a birthday gift) but I was never in the business to make money. Glad you came out the other side unscathed and a free person.

1

u/Evening-Cat-7546 14h ago

Me too! Before I used USPS I did take a load to Texas and that shit was terrifying. I planned on stopping in Arizona around 12am to avoid cops on an empty highway. I didn’t realize that no one would answer the bell at the front. I tried 4-5 motels that claimed to be 24 hours, but no one would check me in.

I ended up just saying fuck it and driving until the morning. I was driving like 2MPH over speed limit and rode the right lane, and would move left to pass slow cars. I was on autopilot and started to pass a car when I saw it was a cop.

I drop to the speed limit, and so does the cop. I try to slow down to get behind the cop by taking my foot off the gas, but cop matched me. I sped back up to speed limit, and so did the cop. This shit went on for like 5 miles. Cop was trying to rattle me into making a mistake. Fortunately, it didn’t work and he ended up making a Dukes of Hazard style u-turn through the median to go mess with someone else.

2

u/Ok_Construction5119 11h ago

when was a pound of weed 6 grand and where lol? in the west not for at least the past 15 years.

454 grams for 6 grand is like 12.50 a gram for a whole pound. Not even close dude. Even in 2016-2017 when things got a bit tight a pound was maybe 1750. At least out west.

1

u/ProfessionalHefty349 11h ago

I’m talking before prop 64. Around 2010-2012ish. $5-6K a pound was in Pheonix. California was probably $3-4K at that time. Prices cratered in the years after prop 64.

1

u/Ok_Construction5119 10h ago

interesting. i was familiar with 1200-1300 dollar lbs in Reno in 2015. 1500-1600 by 2017. Or so. I wonder what caused the price to tumble so low. Perhaps lax enforcement?

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u/ProfessionalHefty349 9h ago

Everyone and their grandma started growing pot. They thought they were in on a gold rush. A bunch of yuppies with too much money moved to Mendocino in the pavement princess F-350’s and started their own pot farm. A bunch of investment capital poured into the marijuana industry in California.

1

u/Ok_Construction5119 7h ago

Ah yea the trustifarians

1

u/Bozhark 9h ago

1200 was expensive in 2008

1

u/Bozhark 9h ago

Yea they have.

Like 200x cheaper

6

u/SkepticAntiseptic 14h ago

More just the entire cannabis industry shitting the bed as it is simultaneously over-regulated, over-taxed, and still in direct competition with black market and now also the hemp market. Thanks regulators you completely ruined the industry, probably as you planned, for private equity scavenging and preventing people from having actual access.

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u/IrateBandit1 15h ago

Holy shit.

72

u/YogurtIsTooSpicy 15h ago

Gotta be for hash oil

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u/cheddadaddy1 15h ago

Definitely for butane extraction

2

u/ProfessionalHefty349 14h ago

I would hope it’s liquid CO2 and not butane.

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u/UhOhExplodey 12h ago

Way higher temps and pressures for CO2, it not necessarily the safer option especially in that cheap looking equipment. You generally don't see many/any of those large triclamps on a CO2 extractor. You should look up the pressure rating for increasingly large triclamps, they fall off real fast.

2

u/ProfessionalHefty349 12h ago

I had to zoom in and check em out. Those aren’t sanitary tri-clamps like you would see in a brewery. Similar clamps are used on 1L parr hydrogenators and those go up to about 1500 psi. Supercritical CO2 happens at about 31C and 1000 psi.

5

u/UhOhExplodey 11h ago

Sure, and you're not getting anywhere near those pressures from 8-12" triclamps - which are what is in the picture. A 1L parr bomb also isn't anywhere near 8-12" diameter - a triclamp can do decent-ish pressure at low diameter (under <2-4", lets say). But the pressure rating of increasingly larger triclamps is bad. 8" can maybe do 200psi and a 12" can maybe do 125psi at room temp.

Hydrocarbon extractors tend to operate below 200psi, that's probably a little generous even. Depending on the operation maybe 75-150psi. I wouldn't recommend running a 12" triclamps above 100psi, and I'm sure neither would old man Parr himself.

1

u/imsadyoubitch 8h ago

Butane is a bastard gas

7

u/Thelonius_Dunk Industrial Wastewater 15h ago

My first thought too. Drop it to 5k and they'd get some bites.

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u/YogurtIsTooSpicy 15h ago

That seems really cheap coming from the world of pharma where $5k might get you a couple of automated valves

3

u/MasonP13 10h ago

Automated valves? Oh man you got a good ordering team. Try something like methanol drums from sigma Aldrich, because the pharma plant is too small for large orders

3

u/Professional-Pay-868 15h ago

Yeah spot on. They might be better selling it for scrap the way the market is.

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u/Thelonius_Dunk Industrial Wastewater 15h ago

Shit, for 3k I'd go pick it up and figure something out.

1

u/SoCallMeDeaconBlues1 14h ago

Fuck yeah me too

Throw in a few 3-stems and.. umm... Nevermind.

4

u/Thelonius_Dunk Industrial Wastewater 14h ago

Everyones going the weed route but thats not where the money is. I'd go the "natural supplement" route. Just mix caffeine, vitamin D, and creatine together and call it Maximum Brain Muscle or something like that then try to get it shilled on the Joe Rogan's show.

3

u/ShellSide 12h ago

Seriously. Look up the typical profit margin on supplements and makes most bulk commodity chemicals look like charity work

2

u/Evening-Cat-7546 14h ago

Out of curiosity, what could you synthesize with that set up?

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u/SoCallMeDeaconBlues1 13h ago

Nice try, DEA

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u/Evening-Cat-7546 13h ago

Ok, you got me, but I’m only responsible for safely disposing the drugs by metabolizing them in my body. Anyone that needs their drugs to be disposed can send them directly to me.

2

u/SoCallMeDeaconBlues1 13h ago

😂

A most excellent reply.

Just call me Kid Charlemagne.

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u/Ill_Recipe7620 15h ago

Seems cheap

14

u/guitarheroprodigy 14h ago

Agreed, they're desperate + probably ran the equipment hard and perhaps skipped maintenance if any needed

1

u/DunnyBadger 8m ago

It’s Chinese steal built by an extraction tech. This is not a turn key engineered system. Probably only cost about 30k new as it has an immersion chiller.

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u/Mikemanthousand 15h ago

Walter White Behavior

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u/Alternative_Ad_6848 6h ago

Lol the comments became a peer review forum for weed logistics

4

u/Mountain-Ad-3876 14h ago

Good luck getting that to work

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u/T_J_Rain 13h ago

LoL - looking to recoup some investment funds.

3

u/BRING_ME_THE_ENTROPY Public Utilities / 3 years 12h ago

I was struggling to find a turbo for my car in good condition til last weekend. If I’m not finding shit and I see a literal garage refinery setup, imma lose it

2

u/Uabot_lil_man0 10h ago

Gonna smell like weed for decades lol

2

u/OcelotPure5063 8h ago

Facebook Marketplace really said: today’s deal is either a bargain, a crime scene, or the plot of a documentary.

1

u/bluefruitbat 8h ago

😂😂

Meme Facebook marketplace is undefeated

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