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Becoming completely dependent on imported tech for such basic needs is a BAD idea. The West cannot outcompete China on cost for these products at this time. And

Becoming completely dependent on imported tech for such basic needs is a BAD idea. The West cannot outcompete China on cost for these products at this time. And before you say subsidies, let me remind you that we are all going broke.

defrost 7mo ago
Once you have PV panels, they (on average) last 20+ years - that's not being dependant, particularly when PV panels can be mass produced anywhere. ( They do not use rare earths (inverters use trace amounts) ) China cornering rare earths (for now) is an "own goal" by every country that chose to let China (and to a lesser degree Malaysia) take a hit on the toxic by products of processing concentrates. The US is easily capable of producing it's own rare earths, it's certainly not been backwards in asking Australia to do that for it.
- wakawaka28 7mo ago
  20 years is not great for those. Extreme weather can also shred them. It's fine to have some, but I sure as hell don't want to be dependent on that.
  - defrost 7mo ago
    Gotcha, you prefer to be daily dependent on fossil fuel delivery rather than get new panels every 20 years, particularly given you're in a country seemingly incapable of manufacture and minerals processing. That's certainly a position.
    - wakawaka28 7mo ago
      The US and the rest of the West are capable of manufacturing. You just said yourself they can be made "anywhere" so make up your mind. What I think is that manufacturing is not competitive in the US or the West as a whole because of wage requirements and monetary exchange rates, and additionally because we operate a mostly free market and don't penalize foreign state-subsidized products hard enough to make domestic manufacture make sense. Replacing the solar panels every 20 years at minimum would mean that the panels would always be getting refreshed. Bro we have roads and bridges 50 years past end of life, in need of rebuilding. We can't afford this fragile power grid rebuild that is completely dependent on foreign suppliers. Sorry. Take your snark and shove it.
      - Hikikomori 7mo ago
        There was a test on 30 year old panels and they only lost 20% capacity.
        wakawaka28 7mo ago
        That is only marginally better in the scheme of things. They want to take farms for food out of commission in some places to replace with fragile and unreliable solar systems. Imagine installing this stuff on a large scale. If you plan to replace all the panels after 30 years and incur no losses from high winds, hail, vandals, etc., then you would need to overbuild the system by 20% at minimum. This is assuming modern panels are as durable as those old panels from the study too. 30 years ago, solar panels were built in the West and cost 10x as much as the ones we have now. So it seems reasonable to assume that brand new panels might not have the same characteristics, and be less durable. It would make a lot more sense to just put these panels on roofs and in parking lots where the real estate is already consumed, and the power can be a backup source instead of a grid-scale vulnerability.
        Hikikomori 7mo ago
        That's a lot of guessing though, newer panels might as well be more durable and longer lasting. Even if you lose 20% in 20-30 years you don't need to replace the panel unless the cost of replacing them can be recouped within a reasonable amount of years. As long as there is more space for more panels you don't need to replace existing ones unless they stop working, so capacity just increases for decades until you reach some saturation point.
        wakawaka28 7mo ago
        The real estate would be more valuable than the panels, presumably. So it's not like they can just keep expanding forever. As for the vulnerabilities, this is not based on guessing. We've produced solar panels in the West even recently. They are not competitive with China on cost. They are actually fragile. We are facing geopolitical challenges.
- Hikikomori 7mo ago
  There was a test on 30 year old panels and they only lost 20%.
  - defrost 7mo ago
    We (literally, I know where some are) have 30 year old panels and 95 year old men, their existence doesn't negate an average. Also, PV panels are kinda non uniform in performance, long term studies show that one fifth of them perform 1.5 times worse than the rest. Either way, 20 year lifetimes where you build once and reap the rewards for 20 years is sufficient to put to rest the kind of argument being made about dependancies. That's more than enough time for any G20 country to be making it's own PV production chain.
    - wakawaka28 7mo ago
      >Either way, 20 year lifetimes where you build once and reap the rewards for 20 years is sufficient to put to rest the kind of argument being made about dependancies. It's not sufficient. We have had plenty of time to start making all of the critical things we import, and that never happened. In most cases, these things used to be made in the West in the first place. Just because you CAN make a thing doesn't mean it makes sense. The economics of solar would be totally different if you had to pay 5x more for solar panels to replace Chinese-subsidized slave-labor-backed imports. There are other arguments to be made against mega-scale solar. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of solar because it is on a small scale one of the best ways for an individual to get a bit of electricity without reliance on fuel supplies. But it has a lot of disadvantages at scale which make it unsuitable for many regions. Hail, snow, dust, vandals, and strategic vulnerability all make it look precarious. The supply chain concern is that much worse.
      - 542354234235 7mo ago
        The economics of petroleum would be totally different if you had to pay 5x more for crude to replace Straight of Hormuz blocked imports. Weird that it took way less than 20 years for that to hit.

defrost 7mo ago

Once you have PV panels, they (on average) last 20+ years - that's not being dependant, particularly when PV panels can be mass produced anywhere. ( They do not use rare earths (inverters use trace amounts) ) China cornering rare earths (for now) is an "own goal" by every country that chose to let China (and to a lesser degree Malaysia) take a hit on the toxic by products of processing concentrates. The US is easily capable of producing it's own rare earths, it's certainly not been backwards in asking Australia to do that for it.

wakawaka28 7mo ago
20 years is not great for those. Extreme weather can also shred them. It's fine to have some, but I sure as hell don't want to be dependent on that.
- defrost 7mo ago
  Gotcha, you prefer to be daily dependent on fossil fuel delivery rather than get new panels every 20 years, particularly given you're in a country seemingly incapable of manufacture and minerals processing. That's certainly a position.
  - wakawaka28 7mo ago
    The US and the rest of the West are capable of manufacturing. You just said yourself they can be made "anywhere" so make up your mind. What I think is that manufacturing is not competitive in the US or the West as a whole because of wage requirements and monetary exchange rates, and additionally because we operate a mostly free market and don't penalize foreign state-subsidized products hard enough to make domestic manufacture make sense. Replacing the solar panels every 20 years at minimum would mean that the panels would always be getting refreshed. Bro we have roads and bridges 50 years past end of life, in need of rebuilding. We can't afford this fragile power grid rebuild that is completely dependent on foreign suppliers. Sorry. Take your snark and shove it.
    - Hikikomori 7mo ago
      There was a test on 30 year old panels and they only lost 20% capacity.
      - wakawaka28 7mo ago
        That is only marginally better in the scheme of things. They want to take farms for food out of commission in some places to replace with fragile and unreliable solar systems. Imagine installing this stuff on a large scale. If you plan to replace all the panels after 30 years and incur no losses from high winds, hail, vandals, etc., then you would need to overbuild the system by 20% at minimum. This is assuming modern panels are as durable as those old panels from the study too. 30 years ago, solar panels were built in the West and cost 10x as much as the ones we have now. So it seems reasonable to assume that brand new panels might not have the same characteristics, and be less durable. It would make a lot more sense to just put these panels on roofs and in parking lots where the real estate is already consumed, and the power can be a backup source instead of a grid-scale vulnerability.
        Hikikomori 7mo ago
        That's a lot of guessing though, newer panels might as well be more durable and longer lasting. Even if you lose 20% in 20-30 years you don't need to replace the panel unless the cost of replacing them can be recouped within a reasonable amount of years. As long as there is more space for more panels you don't need to replace existing ones unless they stop working, so capacity just increases for decades until you reach some saturation point.
        wakawaka28 7mo ago
        The real estate would be more valuable than the panels, presumably. So it's not like they can just keep expanding forever. As for the vulnerabilities, this is not based on guessing. We've produced solar panels in the West even recently. They are not competitive with China on cost. They are actually fragile. We are facing geopolitical challenges.
Hikikomori 7mo ago
There was a test on 30 year old panels and they only lost 20%.
- defrost 7mo ago
  We (literally, I know where some are) have 30 year old panels and 95 year old men, their existence doesn't negate an average. Also, PV panels are kinda non uniform in performance, long term studies show that one fifth of them perform 1.5 times worse than the rest. Either way, 20 year lifetimes where you build once and reap the rewards for 20 years is sufficient to put to rest the kind of argument being made about dependancies. That's more than enough time for any G20 country to be making it's own PV production chain.
  - wakawaka28 7mo ago
    >Either way, 20 year lifetimes where you build once and reap the rewards for 20 years is sufficient to put to rest the kind of argument being made about dependancies. It's not sufficient. We have had plenty of time to start making all of the critical things we import, and that never happened. In most cases, these things used to be made in the West in the first place. Just because you CAN make a thing doesn't mean it makes sense. The economics of solar would be totally different if you had to pay 5x more for solar panels to replace Chinese-subsidized slave-labor-backed imports. There are other arguments to be made against mega-scale solar. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of solar because it is on a small scale one of the best ways for an individual to get a bit of electricity without reliance on fuel supplies. But it has a lot of disadvantages at scale which make it unsuitable for many regions. Hail, snow, dust, vandals, and strategic vulnerability all make it look precarious. The supply chain concern is that much worse.
    - 542354234235 7mo ago
      The economics of petroleum would be totally different if you had to pay 5x more for crude to replace Straight of Hormuz blocked imports. Weird that it took way less than 20 years for that to hit.