Biden Waives Solar Panel Tariffs, Seeks To Boost Production - Slashdot
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Biden Waives Solar Panel Tariffs, Seeks To Boost Production
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White House officials said Biden's actions aim to increase domestic production of solar panel parts, building installation materials, high-efficiency heat pumps and other components including cells used for clean-energy generated fuels. They called the tariff suspension affecting imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia a bridge measure while other efforts increase domestic solar power production -- even as the administration remains supportive of U.S. trade laws and the Commerce Department investigation. [...]
The use of executive action comes as the Biden administration's clean energy tax cuts, and other major proposals meant to encourage domestic green energy production, have stalled in Congress. The Defense Production Act lets the federal government direct manufacturing production for national defense and has become a tool used more commonly by presidents in recent years. The Trump administration used it to produce medical equipment and supplies during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden invoked its authority in April to boost production of lithium and other minerals used to power electric vehicles.
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> Biden needs to worry about gas prices and inflation.
Okay, Einstein, what's your Grand Solution?
> Climate change is over.
Oh really.
> The democrats spent all of our money already.
Then tax billionaires. Our inequality level is shocking. We need some inequality for motivation, I agree, but the difference doesn't have to be bigly mega-huge to have effect. Past a point there's diminishing motivation returns.
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Inequality is meaningless. Stop worrying about how much other people have.
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Kind of hard to do when the ultra-rich have been taking every bit of economic growth for so long that the real wages for 90% of America's people have gone DOWN in the last 40 years.
And bear in mind that 40 years ago, nobody had a cable bill, or a cell phone bill, or an Internet bill, or any streaming subscription bills either. And the legal minimum wage, nationwide, in 1982 was equivalent to almost 1.5 times what it is now.-
Riddle me this: if Musk, Gates, Bezos, et al., all went broke tomorrow, how would you benefit? How would any of that wealth find it's way into your pocket?
My job pays what it pays, whether Musk is rich or Musk is poor. It's hilarious to see you working so hard to confiscate wealth you wouldn't see any benefit from, anyway.
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But... they'll pout and stomp their feet really hard.
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Or maybe they'll pay smart people to offshore more of it. Maybe they'll just move somewhere else and give the US the finger.
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To paraphrase FDR with the politeness removed, "any business that depends on paying its workers less than a living wage can fuck right off."
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I'm good with taxing billionaires. Just sayin'. There are all kinds of negative scenarios. You're right, its best if they share the wealth in the first place.
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Go back to reddit.
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Nope. It is just beginning. We have seen nothing to far. It will get bad, then it will get worse, and eventually, it may get a little better, but not with people like you having anything to say.
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What Biden has done is just for show. As the mighty chicken Doomberg [twitter.com] noted, one thing not on the list of increased domestic production is polysilicon - if you aren't figuring out how to produce more of that locally, and/or improve how we get the raw materials he wants to produce more of, you are just driving us further into the embrace of China.
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you are just driving us further into the embrace of China.
The goal should be to install as many panels as possible to cut consumption of fossil fuels. Where they come from is secondary.
America gets solar panels that will produce power for 30 years. The Chinese get treasury bonds denominated in a rapidly inflating currency. Seems like a good deal for America.
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The goal should be to produce energy from as many sources as possible, where the energy comes from should be secondary.
Well, except for biomass fuels. Increasing the percentage of corn ethanol in our gasoline from 10% to up to 15% is burning food for fuel. When there's indications of a future global food shortage I doubt burning food is a good idea on increasing energy supplies.
China is making deals with Russia for natural gas. Cutting off Russian natural gas to buy solar PV from China isn't exactly puni
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Indeed. Things are _urgent_.
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Solar panels have a 10-year average lifespan, not 30, and if we aren't making them ourselves it's just an external dependency by a foreign power which has shown a willingness to manipulate our economy time and time again. Tariffs should be going UP, not down. That's how you encourage domestic production.
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Not sure why you'd say that. All 40 of my 12+ year old Chinese (Renesola Virtus II Hybrid) panels are fine, they still retain over 90% of their original efficiency, and they were originally warranted for 25 years... Because they were apparently (judging by the price) subsidised by the Chinese government, they made their cost in just 6 years or so, they are just profit since then.
Solar panel manufacturing is quite "dirty", I'd personally wouldn't push for having them made near my home. It's better to just bu
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> increased domestic production is polysilicon
Maybe he's working on that. It would probably require Congressional approval, which requires doing political rocket science while juggling in reverse on a unicycle blindfolded up-hill in the rain.
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It's not an unfair position that Doomberg indicates. However, there's already been a panel within the Executive office that's dealing with that on a different line. It's a carry over from the Trump policy, but it's a usage of human rights violation [washingtontimes.com] as opposed to DPA.
So yeah, polysilicon industry is omitted, but it's hardly forgotten. If anything it's likely got it's own group going down that rabbit hole. But Doomberg's point stands. Making Chinese polysilicon cost 70% more than median domestic is one t
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Problem with domestic is that we're not tossing money at getting that new plant in Tennessee up
Exactly what I meant by forwarding that on as well, I don't see any money being poured into things like domestic production or mining of important materials.
but don't confuse that with everyone will just go with Chinese poly. I mean if that's all that's there, that's all that is there
It's not that it's being confused, it's that if you aren't ramping up production of things like that but you are ramping up produc
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That's not untrue, but I'm pretty sure that European poly is going to be a consideration first off. We've got plenty of that here too. The Chinese poly is what could be brought in before Trump's order went into effect. They shipped a ton of it in, so there's still quite a bit of it here, but once the already here stuff is gone, I'm pretty sure that there isn't going to be propensity to get more of it at the markup being asked when there's several vendors around, including US.
US producers could ramp up, b
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Cheaper energy is like glucose+adrenaline for the economy. Energy is what runs the economy. The cheaper energy is, the most stuff can be manufactured.. the farther you can travel literally and figuratively. The world must do whatever it takes to reduce the price of energy, within the bounds of not destroying the planet obviously (at least not until we become space-faring).
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There is a simple adage: Energy is wealth.
The cheaper energy is, the more we can do expensive chemical processes. Take CO2 out of the air, convert it into a synthetic diesel, propane, or ethyl alcohol. Slurp up the plastics in the ocean, use thermal depolymerization to turn the useless stuff into monomers that can be reused. Create desalination plants so that a draught doesn't cause famines. Build public works projects like high speed rail to get cars and long-haul semis off the road.
Energy affects eve
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Okay then, what energy sources can we expect to be low in cost? We have done studies on that,
https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org]What energy sources can we expect to lower CO2 emissions? We have studies on that too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]While we are at it we can look into what energy sources are safe.
https://www.ans.org/news/artic... [ans.org]
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]I'll spoil the ending if you all don't want to read the links, it's (in no specific order) onshore wi
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Finally the epitome of the internet experience from the often hilarious and usually interesting taiwannews.com.tw
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/... [taiwannews.com.tw] -
dislike China using Uighur slave-labor, we shouldnt be choking off trade in solar energy products. Not for ANY reason. We NEED to decarbonize. The science is absolutely clear, even if some of the data points still have error bars.
Call China out on their human rights record. Chew them a new one diplomatically. Humiliate them at the UN. I’m good with all that. Sponsor a home-grown polysilicon plant. This is all good. But, in meantime, don’t embargo their solar products.
At this point, I-
Indeed. Decades of inactivity and making things worse have removed all room for maneuvering here. It is literally 5 minutes past 12. Things will get very bad as it is. All we can still do is prevent them from getting even worse and that needs action _now_.
There is also the little fact that the more international trade China has, the more they have to acknowledge international pressure. Buying from them is good.
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China doesnt respond to trade pressure nearly as much as we had hoped. They’re the same as Russia - they’ll take our money but they've got no interest in our system of values. They’re perfectly happy with their Emperor/Czar, thank you very much.
The idea that you can civilize the barbarians through trade has been shown to be fairly limited. I’m very much in favor of disengaging economically from China, EXCEPT for key areas like decarbonization. Let’s keep our immigration p
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Putting money into rooftop solar and offshore wind like so many Democrat politicians are calling for is denying science.
Rooftop solar and offshore wind cost more than nuclear fission power, and produce more CO2 than nuclear fission power. If people believe we need an "all the above" energy policy then lets have an actual "all the above" energy policy. What we have now is a "Meatloaf" energy policy, we will do anything for energy but we won't do "that".
I'm fine with waiving solar PV tariffs to lower energy
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Just the Biden cartel settling up with their CCP overloads. Let American labor try and compete with the CCP's slaves.
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The US Department of Energy did studies on the material needs for various low CO2 energy sources. I found a chart of this data as Figure 2 on this website: https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
Here comes the replies that "just some blog" is not a valid citation. I'm asking people to look at the chart from the United States Department of Energy, the "just some blog" happens to be a nice explanation of the issue as well as a memorable place to find that chart.
The US Department of Energy tells us that solar PV is a very resource intensive energy source, far more resource intensive than nuclear fission, and not great compared to hydro, wind, and geothermal. If anything thinks this study is bullshit then provide another source for the rest of the class to see. Claiming the data is incorrect is just FUD, showing the data is incorrect is an actual argument on which we can base energy policy.
Related to the material cost issue is energy return on energy invested, or EROEI. It takes energy to mine this material and turn it into something that produces useful energy. We can calculate this return and use that for making good energy policy. Here's a web page that put a number of these studies together in a nice chart, look for Table 2: https://world-nuclear.org/info... [world-nuclear.org]
Here comes the replies on how the website is biased. Don't take the word of a nuclear power advocacy website that nuclear fission has such a high EROEI, take the word of the sources they cite. If you don't like the sources then provide other sources for the rest of the class to see.
It should not be a surprise given the material needs for solar PV that the EROEI is so low. We find hydro, onshore wind, and nuclear fission all scoring highly on EROEI.
The source I gave above on material costs has some data on CO2 emissions and deaths caused by each energy source. We have more recent sources on both metrics.
https://www.ans.org/news/artic... [ans.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (You may have to scroll down a bit for the 2020 numbers to show.)The Biden administration is not taking this energy shortage problem seriously. The Biden administration is not even listening to its own Department of Energy. Lifting tariffs on solar PV imports isn't going to help much in addressing the energy shortage problem in the USA. While I'll have people claim that building nuclear power plants would take too long to resolve the energy shortage there is the matter that energy prices today are based in a large part on expected energy supplies in the future. Starting construction on new nuclear power plants shows we can expect relief when they are complete, and if we don't start now then we will certainly face an energy shortage in 5, 10, or 20 years as existing nuclear power plants close due to their age and there's no new nuclear power plant under construction to replace that lost capacity.
I recall a debate with a cow-orker about drilling for oil in the USA where I advocated for drilling for more oil and he claimed that by the time any of those wells would produce oil, about 5 years later, we'd likely have resolved the shortage. Well, 5 years later oil prices hit a new high. If everyone thought drilling for oil was pointless because we would not get anything out for 5 years then we'd be in a constant panic for oil. Plan ahead and we won't have a panic.
We can do more that one thing at a time. We can waive tariffs on solar PV imports while we drill for more oil, start construction on new nuclear power plants, and so many other things we could do for energy. What we get is a "Meatloaf" energy policy, we will do anything for energy but we won't do "that'. I thought Biden promised "all the above" energy. I thought Biden advocated for new nuclear power plants. We can't do "that" though because of reasons. Let's just all sing along with Meatloaf, and listen to the President about how we can all eat cake.
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Yes, and I feel much better now.
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Your sig that global warming is solved suggests that a huge iceberg of misunderstanding regarding fossil fuel usage underlies your current post. But your suggestion to drill, baby, drill, should be made to the oil companies who have been sitting on 9,000+ untapped drilling leases. [politifact.com] Again, we have a supply-chain issue for domestic oil, and the fact that Russia and Saudi Arabia can undercut shale producers at will.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
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