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> Because European know-how and industry, and thus competitive advantage, gets lost 1. This assumes that the way we build solar panels (or whatever) never chan

> Because European know-how and industry, and thus competitive advantage, gets lost 1. This assumes that the way we build solar panels (or whatever) never changes. We lost a lot of steel-making knowledge in the early 20th century. Of course, all that "expertise" was replaced by machines, so it was mostly a loss of obsolete knowledge. 2. The solution is to pocket a fraction of the savings and keep that in your back pocket to maintain a teaching/research corps and to ramp up internal expertise when/if the subsidies stop flowing. Of course, this assumes a level of competence, self-control, and foresight that may be missing in modern legislatures.

mschuster91 9y ago
> 1. This assumes that the way we build solar panels (or whatever) never changes. Yeah but the Chinese basically took the European process, scaled it up and dumped the prices by using extremely low cost labor and massive state subsidies both at construction of the plants and at selling the product. There's no invention there, only the aim of totally destroying the competition. The only inventions happening are in research labs - and as there are no more notable fabs left in Europe or the US, that research will be applied in China. Our taxes basically funding our continued downfall... > Of course, this assumes a level of competence, self-control, and foresight that may be missing in modern legislatures. The only country which ever had this is Norway with its ultra massive oil fund. The Arabian countries are playing catch-up there with their recent investments but... well... building a fully air conditioned soccer stadium right in the midst of a hot desert isn't exactly a wise (or environment friendly) investment, much less a dozen of them. In addition, engaging in more-or-less pointless turf and proxy wars all over Arabia (and parts of Northern Africa too) are a totally unneeded drain on their resources.
- qiqing 9y ago
  > There's no invention there A common bias amongst Westerners who have never visited China. Actually, a lot of "home-grown" innovation happens in China, but is not really covered by Western media. You don't get double digit GDP growth without research into R&D across a broad range of sectors. The solar panels that were produced a decade ago are also not as efficient as the ones produced today, and are productized in very different ways. For instance, light-weight solar panel kits that include a battery pack and LED lighting have a very high product-market-fit for ethnic Mongolian nomads (who follow their herds) and sell like hotcakes over there. You can get another add-on kit for charging your smartphone.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > A common bias amongst Westerners who have never visited China I meant this sentence in direct reference to what happened with solar panel productions (because scaling and dumping in an extremely short timeframe was what happened and broke the neck of European solar). I know that China has a massive ecosystem of invention (evidenced e.g. by the "gongkai" reports by Andrew Huang), I didn't want to laugh that down - sorry if it came across that way.
    - qiqing 9y ago
      Acknowledged. Thanks for the clarification.

mschuster91 9y ago

> 1. This assumes that the way we build solar panels (or whatever) never changes. Yeah but the Chinese basically took the European process, scaled it up and dumped the prices by using extremely low cost labor and massive state subsidies both at construction of the plants and at selling the product. There's no invention there, only the aim of totally destroying the competition. The only inventions happening are in research labs - and as there are no more notable fabs left in Europe or the US, that research will be applied in China. Our taxes basically funding our continued downfall... > Of course, this assumes a level of competence, self-control, and foresight that may be missing in modern legislatures. The only country which ever had this is Norway with its ultra massive oil fund. The Arabian countries are playing catch-up there with their recent investments but... well... building a fully air conditioned soccer stadium right in the midst of a hot desert isn't exactly a wise (or environment friendly) investment, much less a dozen of them. In addition, engaging in more-or-less pointless turf and proxy wars all over Arabia (and parts of Northern Africa too) are a totally unneeded drain on their resources.

qiqing 9y ago
> There's no invention there A common bias amongst Westerners who have never visited China. Actually, a lot of "home-grown" innovation happens in China, but is not really covered by Western media. You don't get double digit GDP growth without research into R&D across a broad range of sectors. The solar panels that were produced a decade ago are also not as efficient as the ones produced today, and are productized in very different ways. For instance, light-weight solar panel kits that include a battery pack and LED lighting have a very high product-market-fit for ethnic Mongolian nomads (who follow their herds) and sell like hotcakes over there. You can get another add-on kit for charging your smartphone.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > A common bias amongst Westerners who have never visited China I meant this sentence in direct reference to what happened with solar panel productions (because scaling and dumping in an extremely short timeframe was what happened and broke the neck of European solar). I know that China has a massive ecosystem of invention (evidenced e.g. by the "gongkai" reports by Andrew Huang), I didn't want to laugh that down - sorry if it came across that way.
  - qiqing 9y ago
    Acknowledged. Thanks for the clarification.