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The policy is intended to thwart China from undercutting prices and flooding the U.S. market with cheaper solar panels. I find this rather disturbing. If s

The policy is intended to thwart China from undercutting prices and flooding the U.S. market with cheaper solar panels. I find this rather disturbing. If solar energy is ever going to replace fossil fuels the price of panels will have to fall quite a lot. Is the Obama administration now actively preventing solar energy from becoming cheaper?

hindsightbias 14y ago
If fall a a lot means China dumps panels, drives US competitors out of business and then monopolizes the market.
sp332 14y ago
Sounds that way, but this article is clearly not telling the whole story. Whatever the policy really is, the Customs Department implemented the policy, and the Department of Commerce will review it later this year.
powertower 14y ago
Cheaper at what cost? China is subsidizing their solar manufacturing industry... They spend $100 to manufacture a panel, only to sell it at $50. The government then gives that manufacturer $60 to keep them operating. Their game is to keep doing this until the rest of the world can no longer afford to make domestic solar manufacturing viable. This practice kills the US industry, and doesn't exactly lead to cheaper anything at the end... It just removes competition and establishes a monopoly that then gets to decide the price all by itself.
- dj2stein9 14y ago
  The US government should also be subsidizing solar energy. If it's not cost competitive against oil, they should subsidize it until it is. The estimates are that by 2020 solar will reach fossil fuel cost parity. So you're only talking 8-ish years to subsidize the solar industry. But instead the incompetent government lets US solar companies go out of business all the while continuing to subsidize oil companies that import from the Middle East. It all just wreaks of hypocrisy and corruption.
- pasbesoin 14y ago
  Combine this with the necessity of "sharing" technology in order to enter the Chinese market -- including manufacturing in China -- and you have a very effective mechanism for crippling and wiping out (short-sighted) foreign competition. R&D is now moving to China, but a lot of what they've been selling has been technology that has actually been developed abroad. P.S. I'll add with respect to the OP's article that as much as anything else, immediate and drastic changes -- that otherwise well-functioning businesses cannot plan for -- are one of the largest banes of government mis-management. Businesses can succeed in a variety of regulatory and tax environments, but when there is no consistency and predictability to these, business stops. Where they have the ability, smart businesses start looking for other markets. Where they don't -- and small business is often by necessity a niche business; there is nothing fundamentally "wrong" with this -- they often cease to exist. As much as anything, it's not a particular regulation nor tax rate that is "killing business" in the U.S., it is also the utter failure of effective government management. Necessary government management. Anyone who lived through the civil rights abuses (including in the workplace, mind you), pollution, and numerous other problems -- crises -- of past decades knows it is necessary. You don't get investment without a corresponding, manageable level of risk.

hindsightbias 14y ago

If fall a a lot means China dumps panels, drives US competitors out of business and then monopolizes the market.

sp332 14y ago

Sounds that way, but this article is clearly not telling the whole story. Whatever the policy really is, the Customs Department implemented the policy, and the Department of Commerce will review it later this year.

powertower 14y ago

Cheaper at what cost? China is subsidizing their solar manufacturing industry... They spend $100 to manufacture a panel, only to sell it at $50. The government then gives that manufacturer $60 to keep them operating. Their game is to keep doing this until the rest of the world can no longer afford to make domestic solar manufacturing viable. This practice kills the US industry, and doesn't exactly lead to cheaper anything at the end... It just removes competition and establishes a monopoly that then gets to decide the price all by itself.

dj2stein9 14y ago
The US government should also be subsidizing solar energy. If it's not cost competitive against oil, they should subsidize it until it is. The estimates are that by 2020 solar will reach fossil fuel cost parity. So you're only talking 8-ish years to subsidize the solar industry. But instead the incompetent government lets US solar companies go out of business all the while continuing to subsidize oil companies that import from the Middle East. It all just wreaks of hypocrisy and corruption.
pasbesoin 14y ago
Combine this with the necessity of "sharing" technology in order to enter the Chinese market -- including manufacturing in China -- and you have a very effective mechanism for crippling and wiping out (short-sighted) foreign competition. R&D is now moving to China, but a lot of what they've been selling has been technology that has actually been developed abroad. P.S. I'll add with respect to the OP's article that as much as anything else, immediate and drastic changes -- that otherwise well-functioning businesses cannot plan for -- are one of the largest banes of government mis-management. Businesses can succeed in a variety of regulatory and tax environments, but when there is no consistency and predictability to these, business stops. Where they have the ability, smart businesses start looking for other markets. Where they don't -- and small business is often by necessity a niche business; there is nothing fundamentally "wrong" with this -- they often cease to exist. As much as anything, it's not a particular regulation nor tax rate that is "killing business" in the U.S., it is also the utter failure of effective government management. Necessary government management. Anyone who lived through the civil rights abuses (including in the workplace, mind you), pollution, and numerous other problems -- crises -- of past decades knows it is necessary. You don't get investment without a corresponding, manageable level of risk.