> So that's what the whole issue is about - but there's a more blatantly obvious issue, which is that no company or research center in the USA has mastered high

> So that's what the whole issue is about - but there's a more blatantly obvious issue, which is that no company or research center in the USA has mastered high-volume monocrystalline silicon ingot production, while Chinese companies have. Why? The US doesn't provide R&D funding for this kind of technological development, hence China is well ahead. In contrast in China this has been under steady development for at least a decade: Sorry, but that's HIGHLY revisionist. China dumped cheap, crappy solar cells into the US and wiped out all the domestic manufacturers. I knew of lots of solar installers who got out of the business because they knew they were going to be on the hook when the Chinese solar cells all died early. And in 5 years that was exactly what happened. These tariffs didn't come fast enough, unfortunately. Another part of the reason why solar installations have slowed down considerably is directly attributable to the fact that homeowners now know that the Chinese cells won't actually last the 15-20 years that they are supposed to. So, unless you can amortize over 5 years, nobody is going to risk installing them. Electricity is neither expensive enough nor sunlight plentiful enough to pull that off in 90+% of the US.