Jul

28

Tufte fail, from Humbert X.

July 28, 2025 |

Specs have been posting about copper, and I happened across this act of chartcrime.

Steve Ellison comments:

Wow, I don't think the software I used to generate Sankey charts in a previous career analyzing a petabyte-sized data lake to surface key insights for one of the big 3 personal computer companies would have allowed me to just start a new stream in the middle ("Imports of Refined Copper"). Anyway wouldn't it make more sense to join "Concentrate Net Exports" and "Scrap Net Exports" on the right side of the chart, and then put "Imports of Refined Copper" downstream of that junction?

I was using D3 in those days; now that I am much more experienced with Python, maybe I should search for a Sankey charting library in Python.

On the subject of copper, I perceive a macro trend that the US has geopolitical risk because too much domestic mining and basic material production was shut down, partly in order to export environmental impacts to less developed countries. Lithium and steel are in similar situations.

Peter Ringel writes:

"Sankey" that is a nice search term. I had it on my list to research. These guys use it a lot..

One finds several sankey libraries in Python on Github, such as this one.


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