Behind the Rise of U.S. Solar Power, a Mountain of Chinese Coal

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Even now, I can virtually hear NNadir headed to the keyboard.

Don't worry about me; I've already started the popcorn (literally, not virtually).

Oh, I forgot. Rupert Murdoch owns The Wall Street Journal., so this isn't true.

IIRC, BP had a solar panel factory up in Frederick, Maryland. I guess that's long closed.

Full disclosure: I live in northern Virginia. We get our power from Dominion Energy, which means North Anna. That's nuke. It has been for fifty years.

The U.S. loves solar power, but the panels are made using Chinese coal. Governments and companies are looking for emissions cuts at the source.

Link to tweet

World

Behind the Rise of U.S. Solar Power, a Mountain of Chinese Coal

Reliance on coal-fired electricity to produce solar panels raises concerns in the West

By Matthew Dalton
https://twitter.com/DJMatthewDalton
[e-mail]
July 31, 2021 8:32 am ET

Solar panel installations are surging in the U.S. and Europe as Western countries seek to cut their reliance on fossil fuels.

But the West faces a conundrum as it installs panels on small rooftops and in sprawling desert arrays: Most of them are produced with energy from carbon-dioxide-belching, coal-burning plants in China.

Concerns are mounting in the U.S. and Europe that the solar industry’s reliance on Chinese coal will create a big increase in emissions in the coming years as manufacturers rapidly scale up production of solar panels to meet demand. That would make the solar industry one of the world’s most prolific polluters, analysts say, undermining some of the emissions reductions achieved from widespread adoption.

For years, China’s low-cost, coal-fired electricity has given the country’s solar-panel manufacturers a competitive advantage, allowing them to dominate global markets.

Chinese factories supply more than three-quarters of the world’s polysilicon, an essential component in most solar panels, according to industry analyst Johannes Bernreuter. Polysilicon factories refine silicon metal using a process that consumes large amounts of electricity, making access to cheap power a cost advantage. Chinese authorities have built an array of coal-burning power plants in sparsely populated areas such as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia to support polysilicon manufacturers and other energy-hungry industries.

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[OnlinePoker]

1. Whatever happened to Kristopher?

I used to love his keyboard battles with NNadir.

[Finishline42]

2. Agreed... N/M

[Finishline42]

3. I'm not sure I care where the energy comes from

Once a solar panel starts producing electricity that cuts the cycle of using fossil fuels for energy.

But there's also this >>>

By the end of 2019, the country had a total capacity of 790GW of renewable power, mainly from hydroelectric, solar and wind power. By the end of 2019, China's hydropower capacity reached 356 GW. China's installed capacity of solar power reached 252 GW and wind power capacity was 282 GW, as of 2020.

Looks like we have 122 GW wind and 97 GW of solar (according to Google searches).

[hunter]

4. Building solar "farms" like that in the desert, like the one in the photo, is obscene.

It might as well be a strip mine.

There's no shortage of rooftops and parking lots to cover with solar panels, where the electrical infrastructure is already in place and the electricity will be used locally.

[Finishline42]

5. I get why you would object but...

Wouldn't a solar farm provide permanent shade for both local plant and animal life?

Isn't there a possibility that the shade of a solar farm would help support those lifeforms?

Wouldn't condensation form on the backside of solar panels? Could a system be developed that would collect and store that moisture?