Michigan’s net-zero dream would raise electric rates, decrease reliability

Michigan’s official policy as laid out in the MI Healthy Climate plan calls for the people, businesses and government operations to produce net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. A new report, however, projects that the plan could lead to more expensive but less reliable electricity service.

The plan aims to “avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis” by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released through generating power. Residential uses account for 28% of Michigan’s total energy consumption, followed by the transportation (26%), industrial (25%), and commercial sectors (21%).

“The real and costly impacts of the climate crisis are irrefutable and that was especially obvious on the ground in Michigan during 2021,” the state’s climate plan said. “Severe, climate-induced weather events over the summer caused more than one million Michiganders to lose power, some for a week or more.”

But net-zero policies, which state documents refer to as “carbon neutrality,” could cause blackouts and threaten energy reliability in the Great Lakes region, a new report from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy said. The report analyzed the electricity plans of seven Great Lakes states, including Michigan.

“Aggressive net-zero energy policies pose serious risks to the reliability of our energy grid,” said Joshua Antonini, co-author of the study. "If we continue down this path, we should expect shortages and blackouts.”

The state climate plan calls for using solar and wind turbine technology to generate an increasingly large share of the electricity people use. Both technologies are unreliable, the report said.

Michigan’s climate plan suggests building charging infrastructure for up to 2 million EVs by 2030 to reduce fossil fuel reliance.

About 50,000 EVs are registered statewide, according to the Michigan climate plan. But getting to the 2 million goal requires that state residents trade in some of the 6.6 million gas and diesel-powered vehicles they’re currently driving.

A net-zero approach will not end well, say two professors who have long studied the effects that carbon dioxide has on heat in the atmosphere.

”Net-zero regulations and subsidies will have disastrous effects,” Richard Lindzen, a retired professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a July 2024 statement, along with William Happer, a retired professor of physics at Princeton University.

Net-zero policies will mean eliminating gasoline- and diesel-fueled engines, along with cooking stoves and space heaters, they wrote. Such policies also will mean doing away with the feedstocks of fertilizers that help half the world get food, the two added.

The two also wrote that the threat of increased carbon dioxide is overstated. As the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, they said, its effect on temperatures will go down. ”More CO2 does no harm,” the two wrote before saying it will bring benefits, including more food for people.

“In short, we’re dealing with tons of pain for essentially no gain,” Lindzen told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. ”Frankly, this should come as no surprise. This was always a political movement. Science was just an excuse. Trillions will be spent and the recipients will be happy to share a few percent with the politicians. Both assume the public will never check and, so far, they’ve been right.”