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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 cou

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.
- cjbgkagh 7mo ago
  On a wing and a prayer. Still hoping for a wunderwaffen to come along and fix everything. Why can’t we retain our relative advantages in technology we’ve already lost. Like a politician claiming they’re going to start to focus on growth, why are they just staring now, why not earlier, why did no-one else have this seemingly self evident idea… Also ignores how captured government funding is, I was offered many millions in research grants so long as I kicked back 80% to the big 4 firm that administered the scheme. Their pitch, sure they get 80% but I still get 20% of free money. I think people really underestimate how much corruption has rotted out the west and how much of our perceived wealth is lie I am highly confident I will outlive.
  - DoctorOetker 7mo ago
    May I ask what country this was in? Corruption is of course deplorable, but a tiny quantum of solace is that it also allows adversaries to underestimate a nation state or block: when push comes to shove, a controlled level of corruption can be suspended and suddenly true productivity is observable...
    - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
      An non-US anglosphere country. Our adversaries do not underestimate us, 'we' are over estimating ourselves. Corruption necessarily impairs the feedback loop of information so the participants lose the ability to properly understand their interests in a way that leads to counter productive actions even in the well intentioned. There is the anti-fragility idea that when something is attacked it becomes stronger - the attack creates a true signal for information which is now capable of aligning internal interests. The problem is if the adversary is intelligent and avoids attacking for this very reason. This is what I believe China is doing, they keep threatening to attack to promote the various grifters, without actually attacking which would inspire effective collaboration. It was a trap and we are firmly caught in it and I know of no way out of it.

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.

cjbgkagh 7mo ago
On a wing and a prayer. Still hoping for a wunderwaffen to come along and fix everything. Why can’t we retain our relative advantages in technology we’ve already lost. Like a politician claiming they’re going to start to focus on growth, why are they just staring now, why not earlier, why did no-one else have this seemingly self evident idea… Also ignores how captured government funding is, I was offered many millions in research grants so long as I kicked back 80% to the big 4 firm that administered the scheme. Their pitch, sure they get 80% but I still get 20% of free money. I think people really underestimate how much corruption has rotted out the west and how much of our perceived wealth is lie I am highly confident I will outlive.
- DoctorOetker 7mo ago
  May I ask what country this was in? Corruption is of course deplorable, but a tiny quantum of solace is that it also allows adversaries to underestimate a nation state or block: when push comes to shove, a controlled level of corruption can be suspended and suddenly true productivity is observable...
  - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
    An non-US anglosphere country. Our adversaries do not underestimate us, 'we' are over estimating ourselves. Corruption necessarily impairs the feedback loop of information so the participants lose the ability to properly understand their interests in a way that leads to counter productive actions even in the well intentioned. There is the anti-fragility idea that when something is attacked it becomes stronger - the attack creates a true signal for information which is now capable of aligning internal interests. The problem is if the adversary is intelligent and avoids attacking for this very reason. This is what I believe China is doing, they keep threatening to attack to promote the various grifters, without actually attacking which would inspire effective collaboration. It was a trap and we are firmly caught in it and I know of no way out of it.