RE: Trumps 30% tariff on imported solar panels
February 1, 2018 at 10:14 am
(This post was last modified: February 1, 2018 at 10:35 am by The Grand Nudger.)
They are, and the industry -is- cheap dirty panels now. That's the irony of solar. It's not that the fed ever gave a shit (nor am I buying the admins sales pitch, because even if it were true it wouldn't work). The industry used to, and consumers used to. Not so much anymore. This is actually a pattern in the green market. Solar gets some steam behind it, manufacturers raced to the bottom and china just happens to be able to capitalize. Same thing happened with organic produce. A tariff makes US solar -more- uncompetitive because it promotes the same prsessures that made it uncompetitive in the first place. That they might be doing this at the behest of the fossil fuel industry is irrelevant, it doesn't actually matter why they were doing it, because we already know what will happen..after all, here we are, and as we agree, china -is- the industry. A tariff only compells a manufacturer to cut more corners, to find cheaper dirtier shit, to exploit more vulnerable materials sourcing, and when push comes to shove the US will never be able to compete with china on price in the first place.
Give it a google, you're not going to like what you find. The only thing that ever kept US solar competitive to begin with, was cheap waste silicon from electronics manufacturing. Just as soon as that ran dry the american sector started to slip. That was the offset to our higher production costs. Two completely identical panels, one made here and on in china, the one in china will cost less to manufacture. That sounds great, but chinese manufacturers aren't actually making identical panels. Even i they did (and there are a few manufacturers that do) the cheaper knock off panels will still cost less and this..more than anything else, drives the market. So here we are. Their environmental cost is higher, they produce less power, and become dangerous environmental waste, themselves, more quickly..but they're cheap. They're still better than coal, but that's a damned low bar, especially in China, lol.
Give it a google, you're not going to like what you find. The only thing that ever kept US solar competitive to begin with, was cheap waste silicon from electronics manufacturing. Just as soon as that ran dry the american sector started to slip. That was the offset to our higher production costs. Two completely identical panels, one made here and on in china, the one in china will cost less to manufacture. That sounds great, but chinese manufacturers aren't actually making identical panels. Even i they did (and there are a few manufacturers that do) the cheaper knock off panels will still cost less and this..more than anything else, drives the market. So here we are. Their environmental cost is higher, they produce less power, and become dangerous environmental waste, themselves, more quickly..but they're cheap. They're still better than coal, but that's a damned low bar, especially in China, lol.
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