91–100 of 100 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, focusing on controlled area of land seems like a good way to encourage wars over territory. I don't think there's an easy answer.
Not to be harsh, but that sounds like it will solve two problems with one stone... I don't think war is good for anyone but it has a way of reducing both population and carbon output.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solar industry is evolving fast enough that most dormant capacity left behind by bankrupt smaller producers probably isn't worth reactivating even if module prices rebound. These producers don't just have smaller annual capacities. They also have less sophisticated quality control, less automation, and older, slower generations of the automated tools they do have. Module assembly is simple enough that some of tho…
Jinko's polycrystalline cells are so thin as to be almost impossible to keep from breaking, something on the range of 150um. I've got a few sitting here on my desk. Even an ultra-low pressure vacuum pick and place breaks them half of the time.
Do you know how Jinko is handling such thin wafers when they assemble their own modules? If they're making cells of such thinness they presumably have found a way to do it; nobody can afford to accidentally break half of their cells on the way to modules.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, mergers have been common in solar for a while. This is one of the top manufacturers today: https://www.hanwha-qcells.com/ A Chinese cell and module manufacturer acquired a Chinese ingot manufacturer. Korea's Hanwha Group subsequently acquired this merged Chinese entity as well as the German solar manufacturer Q-Cells. The merged Hanwha Q-Cells is vertically integrated from cells to modules. A handful of manufact…
I suspect vertical integration works when your key intermediate manufacturing inputs aren't commodities. And you have enough scale to overcome production granularity issues.
What if your manufacturing outputs are also getting to be commodities? The example I was thinking of was refrigerated cargo containers. The inputs are obviously commodities. The outputs are also getting to the point where the cost of financing to build stock for sale or lease is getting to be onerous for smaller players.
Always over until it starts again. Note that the party is over (in this case) because it is threatening smaller businesses, not because there is a lack of capacity or that the "big guys" couldn't still make money at the reduced rate. In every industry where I have been aware of this this situation coming up (voluntary reduction in production in order to shore up prices), it works for a while and then people "cheat" a…
Always over until it starts again. Note that the party is over (in this case) because it is threatening smaller businesses, not because there is a lack of capacity or that the "big guys" couldn't still make money at the reduced rate. In every industry where I have been aware of this this situation coming up (voluntary reduction in production in order to shore up prices), it works for a while and then people "cheat" a…
predict: China will increase their cap on solar production in 2019 to at least 20 GW. https://predictionbook.com/predictions/194304
200GW would make sense however.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The consequence of having 1.4 billion people in your society, is that you don't get to pollute at the rate of a nation with one million people that outputs 10x more pollution per capita. So if China were to split up into a whole bunch of separate countries, it would be acceptable for each of those countries to have a higher per capita pollution rate than is acceptable for current China? As you noted, the Earth does…
Good argument, maybe it should be based on the area of land controlled by each nation? Population density or Tons of CO2 produced per square mile? The problem with per capita policy is it encourages over population which makes the problem worse.
Only recently they relaxed it to avoid social side effects and unbalance in proportion between generations, and fertility rate is still bellow that of the USA (1.62 vs 1.80).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The earth doesn't care, so to speak, about whether it's per capita or not, it only cares about the total global output. The consequence of having 1.4 billion people in your society, is that you don't get to pollute at the rate of a nation with one million people that outputs 10x more pollution per capita. Is that unfair? No. I don't think per capita equality of pollution is the most important factor in this. As a soc…
The US official policy is that climate change is a hoax and even Northern European countries are failing to live up to the Paris climate accords. Critiquing others is easy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jinko's polycrystalline cells are so thin as to be almost impossible to keep from breaking, something on the range of 150um. I've got a few sitting here on my desk. Even an ultra-low pressure vacuum pick and place breaks them half of the time.
The mechanical fragility of thinner silicon has broadly stalled the progression toward even thinner wafers/cells. It's a pity since the optically/electronically optimum thickness would be thinner than is common now, and thinner wafers would yield more wafers per ingot. Do you know how Jinko is handling such thin wafers when they assemble their own modules? If they're making cells of such thinness they presumably have…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people profit short-term by trading with China. It's easier to make a profit as a middleman with China than as a manufacturer in a western country. I'm definitely left wing, but I applaud Trump for the tariffs. Tariffs are a must for the western world if we want to maintain our standards of living and survive long-term. Germany is also a predatory exporter in Europe, but fewer people seem to care about that.…
Germany is the prime exporter of the EU. It has the benefit of the Euro in the internal market for buying power due to its size and it has the benefit of the Euro in the external market because German bonds denominated in Euros are cheaper for it than the other EU states. I'm a democratic socialist, but tariffs are not the way to control trade and standards of living. That is a mercantilist attitude from the 19th Cen…
But consumers are already paying for the current situation in Germany. Instead of tariff, Germany decided to put downward pressure on salaries via the Hartz reforms. The effects are not far from tariff in that it shifts money from consumption towards savings/investments. That's why Germany has such a large trade surplus. And like tariff, it's a losing solution. In the end, your currency should reevaluate. Germany is just lucky to have the euro.
For a long time, I was really puzzled by why the German European partners stuck with Germany in the currency union were so tolerant of pretty much being spoiled. But after Macron, I think it's pretty clear: the richest are far too happy to be able to present lowering salaries and degrading work conditions as an inescapable part of modern economic competition. They are after all on the right side of the rising inequality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jinko's polycrystalline cells are so thin as to be almost impossible to keep from breaking, something on the range of 150um. I've got a few sitting here on my desk. Even an ultra-low pressure vacuum pick and place breaks them half of the time.
The mechanical fragility of thinner silicon has broadly stalled the progression toward even thinner wafers/cells. It's a pity since the optically/electronically optimum thickness would be thinner than is common now, and thinner wafers would yield more wafers per ingot. Do you know how Jinko is handling such thin wafers when they assemble their own modules? If they're making cells of such thinness they presumably have…