Comment by strfry
3 hours ago
'Figure 2: US energy exports outpace production'
We're producing 14,000,000 barrels of oil per day and exporting about 6,000,000 per day, but the author used a graph with two different y-axis scales to make the lines cross so it looks like more oil is being exported than produced.
And to top it off both Y axes have the exact same label. The graph has no indication as to which line belongs to which axis. Of course, we can easily infer which is which from the surrounding article, but still... terrible data visualization
I thought the same thing about matching the line to the axis, but the legend is marked with LHS and RHS. It's very subtle.
Ah, missed that. Well, I think the point remains that it's an abominable and misleading graph
Different scales between the left and right sides as well. The vertical distance for 500k bpd on the left is about half of the right.
Wow, that’s an egregious chart crime. Surely there’s a way to make a chart that isn’t so dishonest. Just plotting the SPR level would make the same point honestly.
| Just plotting the SPR level would make the same point honestly.
They'd still have to zoom in a lot.
Here's the SPR level since the 80s: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W... The big drop around 2022 is, supposedly, related to the Ukraine war.