Michigan’s Waterloo
Appraising the impact of the latest slate of “clean energy” bills.
“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
A Sankey diagram is a specific style of flow chart used to visualize resources moving within a system. Named after an Irish engineer who popularized the format by showing where efficiency losses arise in steam engines, the charting tool finds wide utility among modern analysts. Pre-dating Sankey, Charles Joseph Minard is credited with creating one of the first and most famous examples when he used the technique to track Napoleon’s catastrophic war on Russia from 1812-1813. In the English-language recreation shown below, the shrinking width of the light-colored band reflects France’s war casualties on the march to Moscow (left-to-right), whereas the dark-shaded band chronicles the army’s tragic retreat during the subsequent harsh winter (right-to-left). The temperatures experienced by the soldiers during the journey back to France are depicted in the legend. The density of information embodied in this one figure is striking.
While Minard’s famous diagram sharpens one’s appreciation of the death toll paid by Napoleon’s doomed army, it is in analyzing energy flows where Sankey diagrams find their widest application. The US government updates scores of them on a regular basis, making the complexities of energy traceable for those willing to put in the effort to find them. For example, a quick glance at the flows of petroleum through the US refinery network, provided by the US Energy Information Administration, demonstrates two obvious realities of the current situation. First, there is a mismatch between the grades of crude US refiners prefer and what is being produced domestically, as seen in the simultaneous import and export of significant quantities of oil. Second, the US has more refining capacity than it needs, captured by the major export flows of refined fuels like diesel and gasoline. The diagram makes a mockery of calls for blanket export bans.
Although innumerable bureaucrats within the US government are perpetually cataloging the energy sector down to the finest details, its political leaders and the members of the traditional media who cover them eschew such valuable information when formulating and appraising various policy options. For the latest example, we turn to the state of Michigan where Governor Gretchen Whitmer steered a series of bills through the Democratic-controlled legislature that is sure to burnish her national credentials ahead of what is shaping up to be a chaotic presidential campaign. The New York Times was effusive in its coverage under the headline “A Package of Bold Laws Puts Michigan on a Fast Track to Renewable Energy” (emphasis added throughout):
“The Michigan Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a bundle of clean energy bills, transforming a state at the center of industrial America into a leader in the fight against climate change. The legislation, which passed both chambers of the Statehouse with narrow Democratic majorities, represents a turnaround for a state that had long blocked policies to curb pollution from the factories that have underpinned its economy for generations.
It is based on a 58-page ‘MI Healthy Climate’ plan proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat with a growing national profile who has promoted progressive measures on labor, gay rights, guns and the environment. The centerpiece of the new climate package, which Governor Whitmer is expected to sign into law later this month, would require the state to generate all of its electricity from wind, solar and other carbon-free sources by 2040, eliminating the climate-warming pollution generated by coal and gas-fired power plants.”
A quick internet search for “Michigan clean energy” yields a parade of praise for the governor, with the Washington Post calling the bills “among the most ambitious efforts undertaken by any state to move toward a carbon-free future,” while NBC News characterized them as “a sweeping clean energy package Tuesday that would make Michigan the second swing state to go 100% clean energy by 2040.”
But what exactly is in this legislation, and does it really pave the way for a carbon-free utopia in the beating heart of the US Rust Belt? A perusal of Michigan’s primary energy flows reveals both the impractical nature of the mandate and its minimal impact on the state’s carbon footprint in the unlikely event things unfold as Whitmer hopes. Let’s burrow into the government databases and take a look.