Image of Michigan

Menominee County Republican News and Politics

Voice of the Republican Party of Menominee County, Michigan

OPINION: Repeal the Blackout Energy Legislation

This webpage is not about disputing global warning.  Enough voters and legislators sincerely believe climate change poses a threat that they can pass most any legislation. 

The issue is how to craft responsible green legislation for Michiganders.  It makes no difference to the climate whether CO2 emissions originate in Michigan or China.  Faulty green legislation that shuts down Michigan’s industries will not eliminate the CO2 emissions.  As long as there is demand for the product, industry and jobs will go to Asia where we have no control over the emissions and weaken ourselves just a little more economically, politically, and militarily.  (Please see Davos Devotees Deindustrialize Europe In the name of green utopia, political leaders are quietly killing vital energy-intensive industries. The Wall Street Journal, Jan 12, 2024)

Recently, the legislature overrode all objections and passed a series of green energy bills (SB 271, SB 502, SB273, HB 5020/5021) to make Michigan reach a net zero carbon emission goal by 2040.  Several legislators warned of the traumatic consequences of these bills to the Upper Peninsula’s (UP) economy and well being.  Given the power generation risks these measures will entail, I judge that “blackout energy” is a better characterization of the plan rather than “green energy.”

  • The bills require a radical transformation of Michigan’s energy grid just as increasing demands of electric vehicles and other green measures place a greater load on the electrical system and require that we abandon proven all-weather day/night technologies making the power grid more vulnerable.
  • SB271 increased the requirements of renewable energy production and clean energy standard.  Requiring Michigan to reach 60 percent renewable energy and 100% clean carbon zero energy by 2040.
  • The bills would raise UP energy costs because to meet the new standards, Upper Michigan Energy Resources (UMERC) will need to either construct new power generation capacity, build transmission lines to renewable energy projects, or purchase renewable energy credits. 
  • The new energy standards will apply to UMERC before the end of the useful life of our existing new natural gas power plants implying that UP electric power customers will need to pay for the investments UMERC made in these plants even if the plants are not operating.
  • The UP has a fragile economy and the significant increase in energy costs these bills probably will  hurt the economy.

This page asks these questions:

  • Are the sacrifices demanded of Michiganders by the legislation worth the payoff in the net zero battle?
  • Should Michigan’s legislators have realized this was highly flawed legislation?

My bottom-line conclusions are:

  • The blackout energy legislation demands unreasonable sacrifices by Michiganders in a brief futile gesture that will slightly offset some of China’s and the world’s growing CO2 emissions.
  • The legislation increases our vulnerability to energy crises and probably weakens the American geopolitical and economic power needed to influence the climate debate.
  • Michigan’s legislators should have known better:
    • America’s mainstream news has shown Germany’s net-zero political and economic fiasco as well as growing doubts among America’s educated elites and scientists regarding many climate policies. 
    • Germany has turned itself into the poster child example of the damages wrought by ill-considered and poorly crafted “net-zero” legislation. Berlin now faces energy crises, a weakening economy, political turmoil, and growing geopolitical and economic irrelevance.

Therefore, I urge the repeal of the blackout energy legislation and its re-crafting into a sensible net-zero policy.

Let me elaborate:

World Emissions Continue to Rise, Mostly Due to Industrialization in Asia

Is the world’s rate of CO2 emissions per year increasing or decreasing? That simple question cuts through all the voluminous data and overwhelming discussions on CO2 emissions.  The rate of change over a ten-year period shows how climate policy programs are progressing against CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry and cancels the effects of short term economic downturns such as the dip in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic.  The chart below provides a graphical answer.

Source:  Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) – “Per capita, national, historical: how do countries compare on CO2 metrics?” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics’ [Online Resource]

We are losing the net zero battle.  Over the past decade (2012-2022), worldwide CO2 emissions have on average increased by 247 million tons per year.  Industrialization in Asia causes most of the increase where they produce an average of 369 million tons per year.  This cancels out decreasing emissions elsewhere.  China is the biggest emitter with an average yearly increase  of 169 million tons.  Chinese overseas investment and construction companies contribute to emission growth by building of coal-fired power plants in other nations.  India adds 97 million tons and has its sights set on replacing China as the world’s factory. 

If the climate change situation is so dire that Michigan SB 271 stipulates that we must reach 100% clean carbon neutral by 2040 then why are countries like China allowed to increased emissions each year and not expected to reach net zero for another 20 years after that?

The struggle to reach net zero on a multinational level depends on direct control over the factories and other sources of emissions.  The country that owns the factories has the power.  America could dictate policy in the days when we controlled many of the world’s factories.  But America and Western Europe de-industrialized.  Now, we can beg and cajole China all we want, but as long as we are dependent on their products, China is in the driver’s seat.

Fighting Global Warming Depends on China

China is the world’s workshop and foremost polluter thanks to its abundant coal supplies.  Europe and the United States have leveled out or substantially reduced their CO2 emissions. China in 2022 produced 11.4 billion tons of CO2 compared to the US’ 5.06 billion tons.  In fact, China produces more CO2 than the US and all leading industrial countries of western Europe combined.  To visualize the comparative rate of China’s increasing emissions please examine the graph below which uses the same data as the graph above but it is focused on fewer countries.

Source:  Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) – “Per capita, national, historical: how do countries compare on CO2 metrics?” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics’ [Online Resource]

We Should Question China’s Willingness to Deliver on its Net Zero Promises

Internal politics and the political necessity to continually deliver better living standards could thwart China’s effort to reduce emissions and achieve net zero by 2060.  China suffers from tremendous problems with pollution and environmental degradation and is sincerely trying to reduce emissions.  But most Chinese are poor by American standards.  The Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power depends on appealing to Chinese nationalism and improving the lives of its citizens.  Nationalism means that Beijing cannot let China appear to have other nations dictate policy to them.  And as we Michiganders know from bitter experience, Chinese de-industrialization and strict environmental regulations to reduce emissions will kill jobs and your economy.

  • In the two years since Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects,” a permit granting spree for coal power plant construction caused China to accelerate “the additions of new coal power capacity” perhaps by a third from its current capacity.    China now has under construction and permitted an additional 243 Gigawatts (GW) of coal power and that capacity could rise to 392 GW if all the prospective projects get permits.  This would increase China’s already enormous coal-fired power capacity by 23% to 33%.
  • China also pledged two years ago to stop building new coal plants overseas when some 80 were projected.  At present, the status of approximately 40 of these plants remains in limbo as the Chinese bicker over how to interpret Beijing’s pledge.  Those 40 projects would produce 245 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, or a little less than Spain’s total emissions or nearly 100 million tons more than Michigan’s.  Meanwhile a new plant in Indonesia and a resurrected project in Pakistan have been added to the list. 

Will a Chinese promise to reach net zero by 2060 be too little too late?  The world noticed the effects of  global warming at a much lower level of pollution than we have now. Starting in the 1980s, scientists noticed that warmer temperatures worldwide could not be explained away as just the natural variability of the earth’s climate.  China’s current annual CO2 emissions output matches the worldwide rate in 1965 and it appears China’s rate of increase is accelerating.  China’s ten-year average increase is 169 million tons per year, but the five year average including the COVID dip is 277 million tons per year.  For comparison the worldwide CO2 emission rate since 1965 averaged 453 million tons per year. 

Michigan’s Sacrifice Would Not Offset One Year of Chinese Emissions Growth

A net zero Michigan would only partially offset China’s pollution growth for only one year. From 2012 to 2021, Michigan emitted on average 156 million tons of CO2 per year while China’s emissions grew by an average of 169 million tons per year.  The scale of Chinese pollution is staggering.  Nine of China’ large corporations/conglomerates each produce more CO2 than Michigan, according to Bloomberg news.

  • Michiganders are not net zero slackers.  Environmental legislation and the loss of industrial jobs caused Michigan’s CO2 emissions to drop from 199 million metric tons per year in 1999 to 148 million metric tons in 2021, according to the St Louis Fed’s economic data.   Offshoring moved many of our jobs, factories, and pollution production overseas. 

The bitter irony behind Michigan’s blackout energy legislation is that our money would contribute to CO2 emissions and bolster the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power and its worldwide economic leverage.  China makes most of the world’s solar panels using coal-fired electrical power making them more polluting than many realize. Research by Environmental Progress, a nonprofit research organization warned that pollution estimates for Chinese solar panel production are misleading government policymakers and investors because of “the difficulty of collecting accurate information out of China.” The question once again looms, can we trust China to keep its word?  An Italian researcher estimated that Chinese made solar panels are three to five times more polluting per kilowatt hour of electricity than previously believed.  This is also three to five time more polluting than a natural gas fired plant with carbon capture, a policy alternative to solar panels.

The Germans Have Already Stepped on the Net Zero Rake

Michigan’s policymakers should have considered Germany’s political and economic crisis due to net zero policies.  Germany’s highest constitutional court recently ruled that the government could no longer shift the costs of going green off the government’s budget by crediting it to “special funds” (Sondervermögen).  The German constitution limits the deficit to 0.35% of Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) and the ruling blew at least a €60 billion, multiyear hole in the budget.  The new fiscal year 2024 budget must identify €17 billion in spending cuts or revenue increases and pass the costs directly on the taxpayer eliminating subsidies that cushioned the costs.

To summarize the consequences of the court ruling, let me quote the Wall Street Journal’s political economics columnist, and Editorial Board Member, Joseph Sternberg:

“It’s worth recalling why all this spending is so urgent: Nearly two decades into an epochal energy transformation, the project now known as “net zero” is an enormous flop. Renewable power hasn’t been capable of reliably meeting the energy needs of any advanced industrial economy, and certainly hasn’t been able to replace the nuclear capacity Berlin took off line starting in 2011. The disruption of cheap imports of Russian fossil fuels since last year’s Ukraine invasion has made matters considerably worse.

Industry is fleeing Germany. The new green jobs the net-zero left promised require enormous subsidies. And Berlin must offer generous handouts, probably permanent, to individual households to shield them from the crippling energy-price consequences of decades of accumulated policy errors.

Ameliorating all of this was meant to be paid for on the sly via borrowing concealed in various Sondervermögen. No longer. Germany long ago perfected the art of green virtue signaling. Now it will have to conduct a substantive debate about whether the negligible global benefits of Germany’s slashing carbon emissions are worth the costs, especially if money must be diverted from other policy priorities such as social welfare.”

Let me restate some of that quote citing different sources and details:

Prior to the ruling, Germany, Europe’s biggest emitter of CO2, found their net zero targets unreachable, according to the Spectator.  “The coalition government between the Social Democrats, Greens and liberals has nearly torn itself apart fighting over policies to clean up the economy,” according to the Guardian. The Germans were floundering in their attempts to devise ways to save heavy industry.  Last year chemicals giant BASF signaled it would invest £10 billion in a new plant in China. Further efforts to achieve net zero will send more of German industry to South Asia, which is unencumbered by legally-binding targets.  The Germans have been fighting European Union proposals for more environmental reporting and to loosen restrictions.

Germany is well-known for its green virtue signaling which is proving utterly unrealistic and incoherent.  Its now apparent that wind turbines and solar cannot deliver sufficient cheap and reliable energy.  Berlin has long relied on cheap Russian gas while hoping that some green energy solution would appear.  Last year’s energy crisis when Russia phased out gas supplies forced Berlin to rely on coal.  Its efforts to phase-out coal fired power were further undermined in October 2023 when mothballed plants were reactivated to keep the lights on this winter, according to Bloomberg.  The “Greens” ecology party exacerbated German energy dilemma by forcing the government to shut down the nation’s nuclear power plants, formerly a quarter of Germany’s electricity.  Ironically nuclear is one of the most green ways to generate electricity. 

Mainstream News Reveals Growing Doubts about the Efficacy of Many Climate Policies

There were numerous warning signals in the US press that should have made legislators more circumspect about rushing through momentous legislation.  There is a growing body of credible reporting that many net zero policies are flawed or failing, green technologies are not ready for prime time, and doubts are growing about the honesty of “green” reporting.  The titles and subtitles tell much of the story.

The Electrical Grid is vulnerable. 

  • Two-thirds of North America could face power shortages this winter -NERC Reuters, November 2023.  “More than half of the U.S. and parts of Canada, home to around 180 million people, could fall short of electricity during extreme cold again this winter due to lacking natural gas infrastructure, the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) said on Wednesday.”
  • S.O.S for the U.S. Electric Grid  PJM Interconnection sounds the latest alarm that fossil-fuel plants are shutting down without adequate replacement power. The political class yawns. The Wall Street Journal, February 2023.
  • America’s New Energy Crisis Fossil fuel plants are closing faster than green alternatives can replace them. Producers of oil and gas can’t keep up with a surge in demand.  The Wall Street Journal, August 2022.
  • Get Ready for the Blackouts Mismanagement and the push for renewables are degrading the reliability of the U.S. electrical grid. The Wall Street Journal, Sept 2021.  “Generac Power Systems, a company that produces home generators and other equipment, announced in July record sales of $920 million during the second quarter, a 68% jump over last year. But what’s good for Generac is bad for America.  That’s no slam on the Wisconsin-based company, which manufactures about three-quarters of the home standby generators sold in the U.S. Instead, Generac’s soaring sales are evidence that the U.S. electric grid is becoming less reliable, which will make Americans less wealthy and less secure. Consumers are spending billions of dollars on generators to have on hand when the power goes out.”

Climate Policies Failing

  • California’s Green Debacle  The Golden State’s energy policies impose ruinous costs on residents but make no measurable impact on global climate. City Journal, January 2023.
  • Coal Was Meant to Be History. Instead, Its Use Is Soaring The demise of the dirtiest fossil fuel has been delayed as power shortages and the war in Ukraine drive consumption, while China and India construct new plants.  Bloomberg, November 2022.  “ The demise of the dirtiest fossil fuel has been delayed as power shortages and the war in Ukraine drive consumption, while China and India construct new plants.”

Need to Hedge our Bets because Reporting Flawed

Repeal the Legislation and Rewrite It

The blackout energy bills demand hefty sacrifices by Michiganders, but the outcomes will make no difference because of what is happening elsewhere.  It seems political opportunists, environmental fanatics, and legislators eager to virtue signal rushed to pass legislation that will hurt the economy and deprive people in the UP of much needed electrical power and heating.  Left with the choice of freezing to death or cutting down forests to warm their homes, I suspect the trees will go.