How China Came To Dominate the World in Solar Energy (nytimes.com) 101
China unleashed the full might of its solar energy industry last year. It installed more solar panels than the United States has in its history. It cut the wholesale price of panels it sells by nearly half. And its exports of fully assembled solar panels climbed 38 percent while its exports of key components almost doubled. Get ready for an even bigger display of China's solar energy dominance. The New York Times: While the United States and Europe are trying to revive renewable energy production and help companies fend off bankruptcy, China is racing far ahead. At the annual session of China's legislature this week, Premier Li Qiang, the country's second-highest official after Xi Jinping, announced that the country would accelerate the construction of solar panel farms as well as wind and hydroelectric projects.
With China's economy stumbling, the ramped-up spending on renewable energy, mainly solar, is a cornerstone of a big bet on emerging technologies. China's leaders say that a "new trio" of industries -- solar panels, electric cars and lithium batteries -- has replaced an "old trio" of clothing, furniture and appliances. The goal is to help offset a steep slump in China's housing construction sector. China hopes to harness emerging industries like solar power, which Mr. Xi likes to describe as "new productive forces," to re-energize an economy that has slowed for more than a decade. The emphasis on solar power is the latest installment in a two-decade program to make China less dependent on energy imports.
With China's economy stumbling, the ramped-up spending on renewable energy, mainly solar, is a cornerstone of a big bet on emerging technologies. China's leaders say that a "new trio" of industries -- solar panels, electric cars and lithium batteries -- has replaced an "old trio" of clothing, furniture and appliances. The goal is to help offset a steep slump in China's housing construction sector. China hopes to harness emerging industries like solar power, which Mr. Xi likes to describe as "new productive forces," to re-energize an economy that has slowed for more than a decade. The emphasis on solar power is the latest installment in a two-decade program to make China less dependent on energy imports.
cheap labor still? (Score:2)
cheap labor still?
as for electric cars and lithium batteries the overseas shipping makes it hard to get them to the usa.
Re:cheap labor still? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's basically the Green New Deal, i.e. what we should do. Creates loads of decently paid jobs, and cleans up the environment at the same time. All three of those industries, solar, batteries, and EVs, are supply constrained.
Re:cheap labor still? (Score:4, Insightful)
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How does anything get built in the US? How did the coal plants get there in the first place?
Coal plants were built many years ago. (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the coal plants (~90%) were built before 1990, when there was a lot less regulation, and the NIMBYs had not really taken control.
Re: cheap labor still? (Score:2)
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The future of solar is power on people's roofs. The electric grid is going to become less and less reliable both from a larger summer cooling load and electric vehicles. There is no money in new coal fired plants relative to solar, so those won't actually be built. Nuclear costs more than coal.
For my house, I figured 3 solar panels and some clever electronics could eliminate 50% of my electricity bill because of time of day billing. Now, those clever electronics might not be easy to figure out. But so
Re: cheap labor still? (Score:2)
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Panels come in different sizes, with different output. Counting "panels" makes no sense.
Re: cheap labor still? Counting Panels (Score:2)
Well, it does and it doesn't make sense to count panels. Panels do come in different sizes, but mostly what people quote and buy for rooftop solar is whatever panel is the least $/watt. It's just what makes sense, cost-wise - you're rarely constrained by space. And that was, last time I looked (and that was a while ago) right around the 1000 watt panels.
So, using that as a rule of thumb, you can talk about different setups in numbers of panels. Not the most accurate - peak KW power I would consider bett
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Typical panels are in 400 to 550/600 Watt range.
Bottom line total Watt is important. And what you do with it.
If I only need 5 panels (haha), and have no good feed in tariff, obviously I do not install more than 5.
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I didn't say 3 panels would power the house. Where I am, there is wicked peak demand / time of day pricing, and this is timed to hours where I'm not home. So I only need to power the fridge and freezer and the vampire day-time loads - to wipe out 50% of the bill.
Depending on location, I may need more panels to deal with less output than expected too. This doesn't change the impact on time of day pricing.
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I'm thinking the average person has not realized how cheap solar actually is.
Are the Trump import taxes still in place?
With nearly 50% import tax into Thailand from China, 1.1kW costs me a bit less than THB7000. That is roughly $175 - $200. Forget feed in tariffs, I just consume it, by pumping water into a pond for later usage.
That will produce about 7kW/h a day. Which would cost about THB35 a day.
So cost wise the solar panel is paid off after 200 days.
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You must have a tiny, super efficient house. My 11,000 pvw system has no trouble supply all the electricity I need unless I want to run my electric space heaters or electric dryer. Or it is cloudy. I have only been using it for a week but I already know 20 kWh of battery storage is not enough. I will be buying two more 5.12 kWh batteries and 8 more 460 watt panels.
I live in a rural area so no regulations on what I can do on my property. Off grid system so I am not putting anything back into the grid.
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Re:cheap labor still? (Score:5, Interesting)
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In addition, I seem to recall an article here on /. some years ago about China accused of "dumping" to gain an advantage.
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However, the energy transition is being spurred by government funding, and sending US taxpayer funds to China proved to be politically untenable.
Re: cheap labor still? (Score:3)
I think we have to be careful not to conflate things. While China does use forced labor, and that gives individual enterprises unfair advantages (which of course is not the only reason we should care about that), itâ(TM)s unlikely that in a country of 740 million active workers that there is enough slavery going on to alter the economics of labor much on a nationwide level.
Weak legal protections for the common worker probably does more to give China a labor cost advantage than slavery, because that
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Uyghurs
You mean those guys who have their own autonomous province, governing themselves, basically completely separated from mainland China government, who were and are excluded from the "one child policy"?
I suggest you should do something against "slave labour prisons" in your own country first?
Re:cheap labor still? (Score:5, Informative)
China is no longer a cheap labor country. This is why you see much outsourcing go to other Southeast Asia countries now.
What China does have going on though is they put $890bn into renewables in 2023, which almost beat total global investment in /fossil/ fuels, and 40% of their gdp growth came from renewables last year. Basically renewables are their new economic engine now. They are about to meet 10% of Paris 2030 /global/ targets of renewable use by end of 2026, and 100% of their own targets by 2025. China knows they are going to be hit hard by climate change, probably already by the middle of the century, and they are working hard to not make it worse than it is already going to be.
As to the constant cries of their construction sector somehow meaning trouble for their economy, meh. They have now built most of the real estate they need, so they are switching gears to the next problem. Expect to hear a bit of grinding while they do that.
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You are mostly right, don't want to nitpick on one point or two where I disagree with.
The point is that China is run by a group of people who are basically "Sim City Players".
I remember an episode in a German TV magazine. The Chinese ambassador in Germany was interviewed.
That was done during a book fiery in Frankfurt/Germany, at that time a famous Chinese writer was imprisoned. And won a price at that book event.
So the interview kind of started with: " what about that writer you have imprisoned?"
The (unexpe
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Is he a criminal mastermind or senile? He can't be both.
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Energy Independence (Score:5, Interesting)
The emphasis on solar power is the latest installment in a two-decade program to make China less dependent on energy imports.
I've long thought the argument for green energy should always have been economic and geopolitical, not environmental. In this case, the less Russian oil and gas bought, the better.
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Indeed. I think the German conservatives have just gotten really dumb at this time and are barely capable of doing anything besides saying "no" to give the appearance of doing something. Also probably a key reason why the clearly proto-fascist AfD is raising in importance.
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Yep. The NSDAP was deeply evil, but at least they had style! The AfD is just the cheap discount copy. Still dangerous.
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Absolutely. I'm always amazed that the conservative right in Europe doesn't jump on that. Especially here in Germany, did they forget the economic side of why WW II was lost?
The conservative right has become a fifth column for Russia - for some weird reason. So they want to buy oil and gas from Putin.
Pro-Putin Republican Voters are even weirder (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely. I'm always amazed that the conservative right in Europe doesn't jump on that. Especially here in Germany, did they forget the economic side of why WW II was lost?
The conservative right has become a fifth column for Russia - for some weird reason. So they want to buy oil and gas from Putin.
A LOT of MAGA types in the USA (Trump followers) fawn endless praise on Putin and want them to win the war. They seem to have forgotten the cold war and have no basic understanding of current geopolitics. They just know that their mortal enemy wants to help Ukraine, so whatever the opposite is must be right. They think a centrist Republican, like Lynne Cheney, is a greater threat to their way of life than Putin.
The weirdest thing to me is for these pro-Putin Republicans voters...what's in it for them? Why do they want to see Ukraine fall and NATO collapse? We know what Donald Trump gains because Putin will do whatever it takes to get Trump elected again...but what about the rest? I definitely do not understand the logic of the MAGA movement.
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The weirdest thing to me is for these pro-Putin Republicans voters...what's in it for them?
It'll really pwn the libs.
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I definitely do not understand the logic of the MAGA movement
The clue might be in the statement.
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--Start early. Europe has been starting wars with itself for centuries. After the US was created, it followed a strongly isolationist policy. Not getting sucked into European war of the week was a normal American value and not exceptional. The US wanted to take its ball, go home to our hemisphere, and be left alone. Forget Russia and Ukraine, back then it was let France and England keep
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NATO and expansion of NATO, even in the absence of the Soviet Threat which was the only reason US was really benefitting from NATO, has CAUSED Russia to perform the recent territorial invasions to try to secure their sphere of influence. This is not a theory; it's exactly what Russia said they would do, for exactly the reasons Russia said they would do them, all caused by NATO expansion and aggression exactly like Russia said not to do. And this aggression against Russia does not benefit the US at all, what
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The weirdest thing to me is for these pro-Putin Republicans voters...what's in it for them? Why do they want to see Ukraine fall and NATO collapse? We know what Donald Trump gains because Putin will do whatever it takes to get Trump elected again...but what about the rest? I definitely do not understand the logic of the MAGA movement.
Regan helped tear down the Berlin wall.
Trump wants to help Putin rebuild it.
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A LOT of MAGA types in the USA (Trump followers) fawn endless praise on Putin and want them to win the war. They seem to have forgotten the cold war and have no basic understanding of current geopolitics. They just know that their mortal enemy wants to help Ukraine, so whatever the opposite is must be right. They think a centrist Republican, like Lynne Cheney, is a greater threat to their way of life than Putin.
The weirdest thing to me is for these pro-Putin Republicans voters...what's in it for them? Why do they want to see Ukraine fall and NATO collapse? We know what Donald Trump gains because Putin will do whatever it takes to get Trump elected again...but what about the rest? I definitely do not understand the logic of the MAGA movement.
Because they don't really care about geopolitics or the consequences. And to some extent they're right, Putin, if he takes Ukraine, will kill and repress a lot of Ukrainians, and maybe some Moldovians, Georgians, and the worst case some Latvians and even Poles. But he's not going toe-to-toe with the US or hitting the US with Nukes. So even if Putin rebuilds a bunch of the USSR it doesn't have a big impact on their daily life.
Think about the height of the Cold War when there really was a concern about a Nucl
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Not that I live in the US, but I do pay attention to US politics because of its entertainment value. And boy has it been entertaining these last few years.
The one thing that would cause me to dump Biden is if he started acting like Trump; ignoring his advisors and thinking that h
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Well, when the goal is power at any cost, the ends justify the means.
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"A LOT of MAGA...fawn endless praise on Putin..." Really? I talk to lots of people, including MAGA types in the US, and no one mentions Putin, Russia, or anything that you apparently made up. There's no such thing as a pro-Putin Republican voter. All the pro-Putin voters I've heard of are Democrats. Your lie seems to come from the same Democrat disinformation that Trump was a Russian agent, pro-Putin, or any other nonsense made up by the Hillary campaign to explain her loss and discredit the Trump adm
Re:Pro-Putin Republican Voters (Score:2)
I've always been at least a "fiscal conservative" and more libertarian-minded than anything else. But I'd say the vast majority of my good friends generally vote Republican. And I really know *nobody* who is exactly "Pro Putin"? I'm sure these people are out there -- especially if they mindlessly support every single thing Trump ever says or does. But let's at least stop pretending the extreme or fringes speak for the majority.
What I typically hear from conservatives, right now, is simply the feeling Ameri
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It is magnitudes cheaper than the Cold War, where it was Russia draining the US treasury by supporting proxies around the world, and is cheaper than a full-blown Cold War II.
The US, despite its cycles of isolationism and failures to live up to its own ideals, is not going to quit promoting the rule of law and democracy, and Russia is not going to stop bullying its neighbors and own people. It's one reason it is the largest nation in the world and growing.
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A LOT of MAGA types in the USA (Trump followers) fawn endless praise on Putin and want them to win the war. [...] I definitely do not understand the logic of the MAGA movement.
have you actually talked to or met a lot of people like this?
personally, i havent.
of the MAGA folks ive spoken with, some have shared what they believe to be a positive trait of putin, but none have hoped ukraine would lose this war.
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Putin is the strongman of strongmen. The right has always loved that type, from back when "the right" meant keeping absolute monarchs in power. So long as the trains run on time and nobody makes fun of the flag.
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Can't be seen to be agreeing with barefoot, unwashed, granola munching environmentalists. Not even if it means building a secure domestic supply of the thing that underlies every economy.
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" the less Russian oil and gas bought, the better." Wrong. The R's believe Putin is their ally against "woke", they also believe there is no anthropocentric climate warming. And they figure if they get more oil on the market, they will pay less at the pump. Put those together and they have every reason to support more Russian oil and gas. And if that means thousands of Ukrainians must die so Putin's dick looks a bit bigger, they are just fine with that.
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It's an open marketplace, and the US has become the #1 producer of oil and gas.
It's not like if consumption goes down, people will keep buying the same amount of oil from the US at the same prices, and Russian oil prices will drop to 0. Even with an embargo going on, Russia is still selling oil/gas at market values.
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It's an open marketplace
It's not. It's a market place at whims of geopolitical influence. The USA is in a good position to not be dependent on foreign oil, but that doesn't make it immune from influence of OPEC+. That is precisely the issue here, many green energy technologies are not just good for the environment but provide energy independence from foreign geo-political pressures.
My sunlight doesn't come from Russia, but my gas does because we don't have our own. Russia can only influence me if I burn gas. When looking throughou
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Germany does not have any coal since decades.
Coal is imported from China and Australia, I believe from Chile, too.
We have lignite, though. But mining it is stopping soon.
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It's an open marketplace
Not really, once you go volume significant to influence a whole country. The oil/gas has to come from somewhere, take some route, and go through some processing. There will be talks and (geo)politics and infrastructure built, taking years, if not decades, and billions of investment. Once all of this is set up, the tendency is to stick to it, because the opportunity cost to switch is huge.
And no one pays market prices. Political deals are more important than money on that level.
The CCP may be fubar, but they got this right (Score:3, Insightful)
The emphasis on solar power is the latest installment in a two-decade program to make China less dependent on energy imports.
I've long thought the argument for green energy should always have been economic and geopolitical, not environmental. In this case, the less Russian oil and gas bought, the better.
China is a FUBAR mess, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. They pumped a ton of money and did a lot of planning to look after their long-term needs in a way that alleviates their polluting ways and increases their long-term security. Objectively, one has to admire what they did...and perhaps learn some lessons from it. I wish the USA did more big-picture planning. We definitely used to after WW2. I just can't think of many.
I think our politics are the main reason. The Republicans really o
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It's actually not an either-or question. Economists agree that the markets works best when market failures [wikipedia.org] such as negative externalities are corrected, and so, in an efficient market, environmental and economic issues are inseparably linked. With the cost of CO2 emissions fully and accurately internalized into the price of fossil fuels, the question then becomes: what energy source to use t
Solar (Score:5, Funny)
I mean solar panels are somewhat of a magical device. Imagine describing solar to someone who’s never heard of it.
So these passive panels generate electricity from sunlight?
Yes.
How long do they last?
Decades?
They really pull energy right from the sun?
Yes.
Why aren’t they everywhere?
Idk?
Western Industry really missed the mark here (Score:4, Insightful)
Too much of western industry is sitting here with its thumbs up their collective arses allowing other countries to build up deep expertise and become the supply side experts for the rest of the world.
This was always the argument for why (for example) American car manufacturers should be investing more heavily in green cars, because if they don't they run the risk that their lunch will get eaten, which in some way in the EV market it already is.
No company has ever succeeded long term by resting on their laurels.
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I have been waiting decades for the smart grid, and I still receive nothing rate wise for scheduling my power hungry appliances to start at 2am.
A better investment has to rid myself of the grid dependency, and use the
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That's perfectly fine as long as you except the wealth transfer to other countries and don't bitch about it afterwards. Except that's what everyone is doing, complaining about how the Chinese dominate the solar market.
But solar is just one example, the west is doing it across the board for a lot of innovations. There was a time when we found it important to be technology leaders, I guess we're selling that part of our society too.
Nothing about your post couldn't be done at home contributing to your own GDP
how do US Utilities profit from solar (Score:3)
So the burden is on the home owners and property owners to install solar and battery storage to reduce skyrocketing electric bills.
LoB
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Nuclear waste is radioactive.
Batteries can be recycled.
What is your point?
Firefly (Score:2)
Firefly.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
NON-Pay/Register-Walled source (Score:2)
Here is a non-walled article [ucigcc.org]. F the walls!
In short a combination of local gov't investment, and central subsidizes during slumps appear to be the key factors. Essentially the central gov't bailed out local gov'ts when the export market soured. By tag-teaming, the local and central gov't subsidized their way to the top.
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Recessions are when smart governments spend on infrastructure. Rates are low and you're supporting the economy during a downturn.
Smart governments also cut back during a boom, to moderate growth and avoid bubbles (and their popping) while saving up for the next downturn.
We often seem to do the opposite and treat the government like just another business to keep in the black.
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> Smart governments also cut back during a boom, to moderate growth and avoid bubbles
Infrastructure projects are hard to switch on and off quickly. You don't want half finished bridges rotting in the sun or trenches left open.
installed, sure what about used? (Score:2)
China has this habit of building a bunch of stuff that goes unused, so what if they installed them, if they are sitting there doing nothing on top of a brand new abandoned skyscraper or empty gas station
When can I buy solar panels retail? (Score:2)
When will I be able to buy solar panels on aisle 7, bay 12 at stores like Home Depot, OBI, Homebase, Wickes, Lowes, etc.?
It's not clear to me that any cost reductions from the solar panel suppliers or government incentives get passed to the consumer. Are the solar panel installers just pocketing any "savings" that come from the wholesale level?
There's a lack of price transparency. It seems like just another confusopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly [wikipedia.org]
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What's the problem? Looks fine to me: https://www.obi.de/search/sola... [www.obi.de]
Didn't check if they're on aisle 7, bay 12 though.
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If you would not live in the Fucked Up of Awesomnes, you could order your panels on https://alibaba.com/ [alibaba.com]
China's actual energy strategy (Score:2)
... is "all of the above".
See here [wikipedia.org].
Good on China for ramping up solar, but they are still increasing their total carbon emissions. The atmosphere doesn't care about per capita - it only sees more CO2 or less CO2.
USA carbon emissions from energy production peaked in 2007, and have been declining (somewhat bumpily) ever since, primarily because we have been replacing coal with natural gas.
Consequences (Score:1)
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And now for reasons âoeunknownâ the cloud pattern has changed. Couldn't be the thermal updraft from the panelsâ¦..I support renewables. I also support extensive thermal impact modeling for the natural airflow of these places. Placement needs to be in conjunction with natural thermal flows. Balanced as to minimize impact of weather patterns.
If you're worried about "thermal updraft" I worry about what you will think when you learn about urban heat islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And a bunch of normal black roofs don't even make electricity! If you're worried about thermal effects, you would support the installation of rooftop solar on every existing roof.
american corps outsourced (Score:2)