I'm old enough to remember when Wired was excited about free market capitalism. Apparently competition is bad when solar panel manufacturers do it.
To be charitable, they may be trying to meet an insanely misinformed American audience half-way, and wake them from their fossil slumbers before they surrender their global leadership.
But if that amounts to just half misinforming them, then it's still not great.
My first solar pannel was given to me in Takilma ,Oregon, early 90's, and performed the magical feat of restarting my camper bus
by charging it's battery.
That panel was purchased by the guy I was aprenticing with from the founder of Real Goods, who he knew personaly, the founder of Real Goods was the worlds first retailer of solar pannels, and the only seller for years.
Now that solar power is fully verticaly integrated, ie: solar is building solar, the real economics of that will be felt in every market, and bucking it is a lost battle.
PRC built ~550 GW of solar last year, ~300GW domestic, ~250GW export. About 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in energy flow. Assume 30 year lifespan, everyday OF PRC solar production = ~120 million barrels of oil stock (4mbd * 30 ys) , assume 17% capacity factor = 820Twh/yr using primary energy / equivalent / substitution method of 1 unit of solar = 3 unit of oil @35% work efficiency.
For reference global oil production is ~100 mb/d. Global LNG= ~70 mb/d equivalent. Global coal = ~110 mb/d equivalent. PRC solar effectively brrrintg new emission free oil field every 24 hours that is larger than all global oil producers combined.
PRC solar capacity is like 1100 GW... lots of idle plants, but on paper PRC solar can produce more energy than all global fossil combined. But world (including PRC) can't absorb/plugin/transition that fast. Now consider solar takes PRC like 18 months to build / scale vs 7-10 year lead for oil infra from RoW.
Another point to consider is manufacturing all these panels, which are net carbon sinks, count towards PRC emissions, vs extracting oil/lng where exporters who gets to shift emission accounting onto importers/consumers. IF PRC got credited for ~100 mb/d of fossil displaced via solar (round down for conservative carbon payback), PRC emissions would be completely negated, i.e. PRC solar would avoid like 1.5x-2x more emissions than PRC generates.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 34.3 ms ] threadTo be charitable, they may be trying to meet an insanely misinformed American audience half-way, and wake them from their fossil slumbers before they surrender their global leadership.
But if that amounts to just half misinforming them, then it's still not great.
Does HN strip huge?
No paywall
For reference global oil production is ~100 mb/d. Global LNG= ~70 mb/d equivalent. Global coal = ~110 mb/d equivalent. PRC solar effectively brrrintg new emission free oil field every 24 hours that is larger than all global oil producers combined.
PRC solar capacity is like 1100 GW... lots of idle plants, but on paper PRC solar can produce more energy than all global fossil combined. But world (including PRC) can't absorb/plugin/transition that fast. Now consider solar takes PRC like 18 months to build / scale vs 7-10 year lead for oil infra from RoW.
Another point to consider is manufacturing all these panels, which are net carbon sinks, count towards PRC emissions, vs extracting oil/lng where exporters who gets to shift emission accounting onto importers/consumers. IF PRC got credited for ~100 mb/d of fossil displaced via solar (round down for conservative carbon payback), PRC emissions would be completely negated, i.e. PRC solar would avoid like 1.5x-2x more emissions than PRC generates.