alt Hacker NewsExtending the life of existing power infra is low-hanging fruit for more power short term, but the economics of renewables are just unstoppable.
Article states 93% of new generation capacity was renewable which is good, but I can sense that nimbyism is growing towards wind and solar. Not to mention the animus towards China who has wisely cornered manufacturing of these.
The US has shot itself in the foot because of its energy dependence on its own energy source. The resource curse strikes again.
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I still don't understand the economics when it comes to power all the time, not some of the time, and I rarely see that being mentioned in this sort of gung-ho post. I want to feel how you feel - can you help with the specifics there?
The WTO found that China cornered the market with illegal dumping. Of course the investigations and punishments are too little too late.
What's even more important is how solar, and to a lesser extent other tech, served as a gateway for China to accumulate electrical engineering, physics, and chemistry talent the US seems committed to offshoring by incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China). We are training them and not our own.
Some panel manufacturing has been moved to the US and is actually thriving. Qcells keeps growing, year over year and as of 2023 had expanded their US facilities to manufacture more than 5.1 GW[0] of annual production. I'm aware this is a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 339 GW[1] of annual production in China, but we're also talking about a single manufacturer operating in an actively hostile administration and yet is still managing to grow.
Given this is the top comment on the article at the moment, I thought it was worth at least pushing back on this sentiment at least a little bit.
[0]https://us.qcells.com/blog/qcells-north-america-completes-da...
[1] https://futurism.com/science-energy/solar-energy-china-produ...