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We didn't end slavery at all. There are more slaves now than ever. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slav

We didn't end slavery at all. There are more slaves now than ever. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_1.shtml

perihelions 1y ago
Ironically for the parent's thesis (cheap energy replacing human slave labor), one of the major objects of modern slavery is... the manufacturing of solar panels, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/business/economy/solar-xinjiang-china-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/business/economy/solar-xi... ("Solar Supply Chain Grows More Opaque Amid Human Rights Concerns / The global industry is cutting some ties to China, but its exposure to forced labor remains high and companies are less transparent, a new report found") https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industry-forced-labor-xinjiang https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industr... ("A Dark Spot for the Solar Energy Industry: Forced Labor in Xinjiang") (Maybe there's some kind of evil Jevons Paradox for slavery, where the automation of human labor counterintuitively increases total slavery; i.e. the technologically-augmented effectiveness of slave labor increases the value of slaves).
- Digit-Al 1y ago
  It would be interesting if someone could do a deep dive into what solar would cost if forced labour was taken out and all workers were paid a fair wage. Would it still be super competitive? If someone could show that paying a fair wage to workers would still leave solar compellingly cheap then it might incentivise some parts of the supply chain to clean up their act. That's "if" of course.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Yes. The US Department of Commerce has been litigating this every year for over a decade, with a deep dive into what kinds of "subsidies" the top Chinese solar producers might be receiving, including deeply implausible kinds of subsidies, and as I recall one of the "subsidies" they were supposedly receiving was that their employees assembling solar panels were working for lower wages than electronics assembly employees in Indonesia. These investigations, carried out under a "guilty until proven innocent" standard (called "adverse inference in selecting from the facts otherwise available") end up with a quantitative "countervailing duty" to apply to compensate for the "subsidies" as precisely as possible. You can be certain that forced labor would be considered a "subsidy", although I don't recall ever having seen it mentioned in these filings, so my inference is that it's not a significant factor. The last one I examined in any detail was https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/11/2023-14563/crystalline-silicon-photovoltaic-cells-whether-or-not-assembled-into-modules-from-the-peoples https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/11/2023-14..., which imposed a 10.33% countervailing duty on Jinko panels, a 14.27% countervailing duty on Risen panels, and a 12.61% countervailing duty on all other PRC panels. This was enough to ensure that under 1% of panels sold in the US were Chinese solar panels. But we're talking about competitiveness with fossil fuels here, which are about 200% more expensive than solar power, not 14.27%.
_heimdall 1y ago
The source of 27 million slaves today is outdated. More importantly, the source paper referenced by the BBC here doesn't show any source for such a number, the closest it comes is to reference two specific examples of slavery, Sudanese slaves captured by paramilitary or government forces and sex slaves in Mumbai. Both examples are listed with estimates topping 90,000 enslaved. In no way am I saying slavery is no longer a problem, one slave is too many. I chose not to go after the parent comment's claim that slavery has ended because that wasn't the important to the point I was raising.

We didn't end slavery at all. There are more slaves now than ever. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_1.shtml

perihelions 1y ago

Ironically for the parent's thesis (cheap energy replacing human slave labor), one of the major objects of modern slavery is... the manufacturing of solar panels, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/business/economy/solar-xinjiang-china-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/business/economy/solar-xi... ("Solar Supply Chain Grows More Opaque Amid Human Rights Concerns / The global industry is cutting some ties to China, but its exposure to forced labor remains high and companies are less transparent, a new report found") https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industry-forced-labor-xinjiang https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industr... ("A Dark Spot for the Solar Energy Industry: Forced Labor in Xinjiang") (Maybe there's some kind of evil Jevons Paradox for slavery, where the automation of human labor counterintuitively increases total slavery; i.e. the technologically-augmented effectiveness of slave labor increases the value of slaves).

Digit-Al 1y ago
It would be interesting if someone could do a deep dive into what solar would cost if forced labour was taken out and all workers were paid a fair wage. Would it still be super competitive? If someone could show that paying a fair wage to workers would still leave solar compellingly cheap then it might incentivise some parts of the supply chain to clean up their act. That's "if" of course.
- kragen 1y ago
  Yes. The US Department of Commerce has been litigating this every year for over a decade, with a deep dive into what kinds of "subsidies" the top Chinese solar producers might be receiving, including deeply implausible kinds of subsidies, and as I recall one of the "subsidies" they were supposedly receiving was that their employees assembling solar panels were working for lower wages than electronics assembly employees in Indonesia. These investigations, carried out under a "guilty until proven innocent" standard (called "adverse inference in selecting from the facts otherwise available") end up with a quantitative "countervailing duty" to apply to compensate for the "subsidies" as precisely as possible. You can be certain that forced labor would be considered a "subsidy", although I don't recall ever having seen it mentioned in these filings, so my inference is that it's not a significant factor. The last one I examined in any detail was https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/11/2023-14563/crystalline-silicon-photovoltaic-cells-whether-or-not-assembled-into-modules-from-the-peoples https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/11/2023-14..., which imposed a 10.33% countervailing duty on Jinko panels, a 14.27% countervailing duty on Risen panels, and a 12.61% countervailing duty on all other PRC panels. This was enough to ensure that under 1% of panels sold in the US were Chinese solar panels. But we're talking about competitiveness with fossil fuels here, which are about 200% more expensive than solar power, not 14.27%.

_heimdall 1y ago

The source of 27 million slaves today is outdated. More importantly, the source paper referenced by the BBC here doesn't show any source for such a number, the closest it comes is to reference two specific examples of slavery, Sudanese slaves captured by paramilitary or government forces and sex slaves in Mumbai. Both examples are listed with estimates topping 90,000 enslaved. In no way am I saying slavery is no longer a problem, one slave is too many. I chose not to go after the parent comment's claim that slavery has ended because that wasn't the important to the point I was raising.