Michigan’s policymakers stand against reality when they stand with their decarbonization policies. Whether the governor’s MI Healthy Climate Plan or 2023’s Public Act 235, net-zero policies mandate arbitrary quotas of wind and solar power in the state’s grid — despite the fact that such policies destabilize the regional grid, raise utility rates ever higher, and achieve impacts on the climate too minuscule to measure.
The Mackinac Center’s Energy and Environmental Policy Initiative has been working to challenge policymakers on their harmful and costly agenda. Last month, the initiative’s former director, Jason Hayes, testified before the Michigan House Committee on Energy to do just that.
In his testimony, Hayes told policymakers about the dangers to the electric grid that wind and solar mandates force upon us. A recent study of ours, “Shorting the Great Lakes Grid” details the nature of the threat imposed by decarbonization policies around the Great Lakes region. Grid operators, regulators, and reliability organizations all have numerous warnings about the “material, adverse challenges to electric reliability” that “the transition that is underway to get to a decarbonized end state” poses. Hayes’ testimony included not only these warnings, but more timely examples of the costs of continuing along the net-zero path; both the blackouts in the Iberian Peninsula and those in New Orleans have overreliance on wind and solar to blame.
Given political realities, the need for pragmatism and compromise is understood as well — progressives are unlikely to budge on decarbonization policies, regardless of the costs such policies impose. Hayes’ testimony also included previews from our newest research, numbers modeling a less-costly decarbonization plan. If decarbonization has to transpire, then surely it can be achieved by means other than a headlong rush into reliance on unreliable wind, solar, and battery schemes.
Our newest study, with modeling done by Always On Energy Research, offers a lower cost decarbonization plan based on carbon capture of existing plants and growth in nuclear energy which, while still costly, is workable — unlike current utopian policies. To quote Hayes’ testimony, “There is no inexpensive way to meet the CO2 emission reduction targets Michigan officials have written into legislation.”
The Mackinac Center is fighting to keep Michiganders’ lights on and rates low. There’s much work to be done, but our voice is unwavering.
