4 ms·

My hope is that it’s bureaucratic inertia. There really is little excuse. Especially with super high voltage power lines becoming more affordable.

solid_fuel 7mo ago
I mean, the US was deploying significantly more renewable energy projects during the last administration than ever before, but the corrupt trump administration stopped many of them immediately after reentering office. The bureaucracy was moving the right direction - towards renewables - until the conservatives in this country deliberately changed strategy to emphasize fossil fuels again. You can draw your own conclusions about motive, but this isn’t an accident.
- cjbgkagh 7mo ago
  I wasn’t even thinking about the US but consider this administration an interlude. I’m hearing other countries they’re putting the breaks on Chinese solar in an effort to build indigenous production capacity which is incredibly stupid. At least solar scales down so individuals can circumvent and get their own.
  - DoctorOetker 7mo ago
    I am curious what the drawbacks are for building indigenous photovoltaic production?
    - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
      Cost, especially if bootstrapping as your more expensive electricity is used to make your still more expensive panels. If you are going to onshore production it would be far cheaper to bootstrap on Chinese panels.
      - DoctorOetker 7mo ago
        I'm not sure its such a bad thing for the climate though: its not like the Chinese photovoltaics will sit in a warehouse gathering dust, they would probably be sold in other nations, too poor to afford Western domestic production, at least initially. I don't see a reason why Western photovoltaics couldn't be made at the same price or even cheaper than Chinese ones eventually. Automation eventually nullifies differential wage labor and environmental safety costs compared to China.
        cjbgkagh 7mo ago
        It’s economics of scale, no one really has the money to bootstrap to get to scale now that China is already in the market at scale, not even wealthy western countries, so in effect requiring indigenous production is just a way to put the breaks on solar adoption in general. When governments have to subsidize with taxpayer money that money trends to go to donor happy companies that understand the way they make money is through political donations not efficient production. There is no real incentive to be competitive but plenty of incentive to pretend that they’ll be competitive. Any company that actually tries to be competitive will be ‘out competed’ by companies focusing on getting more government grants. The bad push out the good. There is a whole gravy train for facilitating this. Which is one of the reasons I call our current era the ‘looting stage of collapse’. People are biased to believe it will return to normal and it would be in someone’s interest to save our sinking ship, but the problem is there is still much more money to be made in looting, and it’s really hard to stop things that make so much money. The west does not yet understand just how much was lost through financialization of our economies and the loss of our manufacturing industries, we are no longer competitive and cannot remain competitive long term. Not only can we not take on solar production but we can’t even maintain vehicle manufacturing in Germany. The US is about to lose its edge in military manufacturing and in many ways already has. We still maintain an edge in aerospace and software but we’re likely to eventually lose that battle as well.
        DoctorOetker 7mo ago
        I think there are plenty of opportunities to get to scale. Solar panel technologies evolve. Some Western company might scale up solar panels with say quantum-cutting phosphors, there is plenty of room for growth and scale up for panels with higher efficiencies.

solid_fuel 7mo ago

I mean, the US was deploying significantly more renewable energy projects during the last administration than ever before, but the corrupt trump administration stopped many of them immediately after reentering office. The bureaucracy was moving the right direction - towards renewables - until the conservatives in this country deliberately changed strategy to emphasize fossil fuels again. You can draw your own conclusions about motive, but this isn’t an accident.

cjbgkagh 7mo ago
I wasn’t even thinking about the US but consider this administration an interlude. I’m hearing other countries they’re putting the breaks on Chinese solar in an effort to build indigenous production capacity which is incredibly stupid. At least solar scales down so individuals can circumvent and get their own.
- DoctorOetker 7mo ago
  I am curious what the drawbacks are for building indigenous photovoltaic production?
  - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
    Cost, especially if bootstrapping as your more expensive electricity is used to make your still more expensive panels. If you are going to onshore production it would be far cheaper to bootstrap on Chinese panels.
    - DoctorOetker 7mo ago
      I'm not sure its such a bad thing for the climate though: its not like the Chinese photovoltaics will sit in a warehouse gathering dust, they would probably be sold in other nations, too poor to afford Western domestic production, at least initially. I don't see a reason why Western photovoltaics couldn't be made at the same price or even cheaper than Chinese ones eventually. Automation eventually nullifies differential wage labor and environmental safety costs compared to China.
      - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
        It’s economics of scale, no one really has the money to bootstrap to get to scale now that China is already in the market at scale, not even wealthy western countries, so in effect requiring indigenous production is just a way to put the breaks on solar adoption in general. When governments have to subsidize with taxpayer money that money trends to go to donor happy companies that understand the way they make money is through political donations not efficient production. There is no real incentive to be competitive but plenty of incentive to pretend that they’ll be competitive. Any company that actually tries to be competitive will be ‘out competed’ by companies focusing on getting more government grants. The bad push out the good. There is a whole gravy train for facilitating this. Which is one of the reasons I call our current era the ‘looting stage of collapse’. People are biased to believe it will return to normal and it would be in someone’s interest to save our sinking ship, but the problem is there is still much more money to be made in looting, and it’s really hard to stop things that make so much money. The west does not yet understand just how much was lost through financialization of our economies and the loss of our manufacturing industries, we are no longer competitive and cannot remain competitive long term. Not only can we not take on solar production but we can’t even maintain vehicle manufacturing in Germany. The US is about to lose its edge in military manufacturing and in many ways already has. We still maintain an edge in aerospace and software but we’re likely to eventually lose that battle as well.
        DoctorOetker 7mo ago
        I think there are plenty of opportunities to get to scale. Solar panel technologies evolve. Some Western company might scale up solar panels with say quantum-cutting phosphors, there is plenty of room for growth and scale up for panels with higher efficiencies.