Upper Midwest / Great Plains Energy Flows · FY2000–2026
ND · SD · NE · KS · MN · IA · MO — the Breadbasket & the Bakken
FY2024
scrub the year
AMMONIA · FOB GULF COAST · $/ST
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AMMONIA · MADE, BOUGHT, SOLD
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AMMONIA · WHO MAKES IT
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Largest counties · dominant fuel colours the dot · gallons modeled from county fuel data × SEDS mix · constant unless demand tells a story
⚠ Exposure
✕
FY2000FY2026
FY2024
scrub the year
The plains run two ways at once — Bakken crude leaving south by Dakota Access, Canadian crude crossing in to the Twin Cities, and a corn belt that grows its own fuel.
Blue trapezoid = crude field (Bakken / Williston, central-Kansas Mid-Continent); area ∝ output.
Refinery (distillation towers) — Mandan, the Twin-Cities pair, the Kansas cluster.
Blue line = crude in motion (field → refinery, and the Dakota Access spine). Rose dashed = crude-by-rail.
Maple leaf = Canadian crude in (Enbridge mainline → MPL taps to the Twin Cities; Enbridge on to Chicago).
Bottom bubbles = crude production by state (thousand b/d); area ∝ kb/d, shared ceiling.
Amber circle = metro product demand (in-region consumption, fed by the product racks); area ∝ motor-gasoline demand — EIA SEDS state total apportioned by metro population (hover for the figure).
Product trunk (amber) = named refined-products line — Magellan & NuStar from the Kansas refineries; Mandan → Fargo.
Terminal (tank + transfer arrows) = where a refinery-less metro lands product, feeding its demand circle.
Pulsing ring + hover card = ⚡ VULNERABILITYamber = moderate → red = critical. Green rings mark the rescue — surge supply covering a loss.
ⓘ About this map & sources
CRUDE is the map's base/default lens. The bloc is the Upper Midwest / Great Plains — deliberately not the Great-Lakes industrial core (IL/IN/OH/MI/WI), which appears only as an off-map crude-export edge (the Enbridge mainline crossing toward Flanagan / Chicago). Refinery capacities (kb/d) and crude production are EIA-anchored; Dakota Access ramps from its mid-2017 in-service; pipeline routing is simplified and splits are modeled. Sourced (EIA / RBN PADD-2): refinery capacities & state crude production. Modeled: pipe-flow & rail volumes, refinery-share splits, the WCS−WTI differential (CURVES window). Geography is a stylized flatten — adjacencies & directions are honest, not to scale. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026; geography pass-2 approximate.
Teal trapezoid = gas field — Hugoton (SW Kansas, the mature Mid-Continent giant) and Bakken associated gas (ND); area ∝ Bcf/d.
Amber flame = the refinery gas burn — the plants burn gas for process heat and the hydrogen (SMR) that cleans the fuel.
Orange flame = flaring — Bakken associated gas comes up with the oil faster than the pipes can take it, so much is burned off at the wellhead.
Teal line = dry gas in motion — every refinery burns gas, so each is fed: the Kansas cluster from Hugoton; Mandan and Pine Bend from Bakken gas carried into the Midwest on the Northern Border system.
Dashed teal = ethane (an NGL — still a gas) — the dry gas stays in the U.S.; Bakken ethane runs north on the Vantage pipeline to Saskatchewan, feeding the Alberta Ethane Gathering System.
Dashed circles = gas consumption, by state & use — each state’s demand as ⚡ power, ⌂ cities (res+comm heat), ⚙ industry.
Import corridor = teal line + arrow, junction door at the bloc boundary.
Bottom bubbles = gas production by state (Bcf/d), year-driven.
ⓘ Natural-gas pass-1 — modeling & sources
Bcf/d figures are modeled (EIA-anchored magnitudes); production splits, flows and demand loads are modeled. Hugoton is the mature Mid-Continent giant; ND gas is largely associated (Bakken), historically flared for want of takeaway. The bloc consumes far more gas than it makes, so most is imported by interstate pipe: the Rockies via REX (terminates Audrain Co., MO), Canada + Bakken via Northern Border (through ND/SD/MN to the Ventura, IA hub), and the Mid-Continent via Northern Natural (NE/IA/MN). ND & KS produce locally. Geography pass-1 — routes & placements approximate. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026.
Green silo cluster = ethanol producer (corn → fuel); area ∝ plant capacity. Iowa & Nebraska lead the nation — Iowa alone is ~27% of U.S. output (EIA).
Gold arrows = grain in — corn trucked from the surrounding county to the plant (the local feedstock).
Green on rose rail = ethanol out — denatured ethanol moves by rail (also truck & barge), never product pipeline (it corrodes steel and absorbs water). East to Chicago + coasts; west to the West Coast.
Amber tub + green flecks = E10 rack — ethanol blended into gasoline at the downstream bulk terminals (E10 / E15), not in pipeline. Amber = the gasoline, green = the ~10% ethanol. EIA / AFDC.
Green barge = pure denatured ethanol down the Upper Mississippi from the MN plants. 1 barge ≈ 42 rail cars ≈ 140 trucks; winter ice → 0, shifts to rail (Mar–Nov season). USACE / USDA.
ⓘ Ethanol data & sources
Ethanol numbers are real EIA annual series, year-scrubbed (refresh annually). U.S. production (headline + silo fill-level): EIA State Energy Data System, Table PT1, FY2000\u201323 (2024\u201326 held at 2023). Midwest barge-out to the Gulf (barge card): EIA Movements by Tanker & Barge between PAD Districts, fuel ethanol PADD\u202f2\u2192PADD\u202f3, FY2009\u201325. Production has no state split (national only), so fixed-capacity silo outlines (shares) stay from the EIA Fuel Ethanol Plant Capacity report; KS modeled. Ethanol ships by rail/truck/barge \u2014 never product pipeline; E10/E15 blended downstream. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026.
Ember box = coal plant still burning — box sized by capacity (MW), smoke rising from the stacks. The Great Plains baseload: ND lignite (mine-mouth), and the big MO · KS · NE · IA plants.
Gray + struck = gone dark on its real closure year — Rush Island, MO (Ameren, court-ordered Clean Air Act retirement, 2024).
Bottom bubbles = coal-fired generation by state (TWh/yr), each state its own warm tint; area ∝ TWh, shared ceiling. Watch the long decline as the slider runs.
The stall — a capacity counter (MW of bloc coal still operating) that steps down as plants retire.
Plant identities & announced closure years from utility & EPA filings; generation TWh is real EIA (Form EIA-923, fuel COW, all sectors, FY2004–2024; 2025–26 held at 2024). Share % is coal ÷ real EIA state total (fuel ALL). The Great Plains coal fleet is retiring plant by plant — overtaken by wind across most of the bloc.
Earthfill embankment dam (a mound, not a wall) = the USACE Missouri main-stem ladder — click the freshet panel for the roster.
Spinning turbine clusters = wind generation, sized by state output; the W→E streaks are the prevailing wind.
Purple ring = each state’s wind surplus shipped out at 11 o’clock above its bubble (modeled: net export × wind share).
Purple bubble (far left of the row) = total bloc wind surplus exported (~47 TWh latest, modeled).
Generation TWh is real EIA (Form EIA-923, fuel WND, all sectors, FY2001–2024; pre-2001 ≈ 0; 2025–26 held at 2024). Iowa is the U.S. #2 wind state (~60% of its generation). Share % is wind ÷ real EIA state total (Form EIA-923, fuel ALL).
LEFT pie = generation by fuel (coal, gas, wind, hydro, solar, nuclear, oil, other) — EIA annual generation by state, FY2000–2024
RIGHT pie = retail sales by sector (residential, commercial, industrial, transport) — EIA sales, annual to 2020 spliced with EIA-861M monthly
Pie area ∝ TWh on one shared ceiling (94.8 TWh, Missouri FY2011), so states and years compare directly. A dashed ring = no published figures for that year, not zero.
Sales exclude direct use and line losses, so "used" understates what the state actually consumes. Pumped storage is excluded from generation — it is a net consumer, not a fuel.
Panel array = utility-scale solar farm; faint amber stipple = rooftop solar. Both fade in as the fleet grows (~2016→). Farm placements are modeled.
Bottom bubbles = solar generation by state (TWh/yr, real EIA); area ∝ TWh on a shared ceiling, year-scrubbed; a dashed struck ring marks the years a state was still near zero.
Solar pass. Generation TWh is real EIA (Form EIA-923, fuel SUN, all sectors, FY2013–2024; pre-2013 ≈ 0; 2025–26 held at 2024). Share % is solar ÷ real EIA state total (Form EIA-923, fuel ALL). Monthly shape in the window is modeled; the bell volume is real. Glyphs ported: drawPV / drawRoof / drawSolarLayer (Great Lakes).
Containment dome (atom glowing inside) = operating reactor; sized by capacity — the firm baseload that doesn't watch the weather. Monticello & Prairie Island (MN), Cooper (NE), Wolf Creek (KS), Callaway (MO).
Struck dome = closed — Fort Calhoun (NE, OPPD, 2016) and Duane Arnold (IA, NextEra, 2020 — a derecho wrecked its cooling towers).
Bottom bubbles = nuclear generation by state (TWh/yr); a hollow struck ring marks a state gone dark (Iowa, after Duane Arnold).
The firm floor — nuclear holds flat (green) while everything else swings (amber).
Nuclear pass-4. Capacities NRC/operator-anchored; state-bubble generation TWh is real EIA (Form EIA-923, fuel NUC, all sectors, FY2001–2024; 2025–26 held at 2024; Iowa zero after Duane Arnold’s 2020 close); the firm-floor trace stays illustrative. Share % is nuclear ÷ real EIA state total (Form EIA-923, fuel ALL). Generation framing. Ported: drawDomeStation / drawAtom / drawNucFloor (SW). Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026.