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Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

nytimes.com

11–20 of 30 posts

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#11

I upvoted because I hadn't seen this layout for the NYT website before. It's kind of neat, especially when you click the X button the top right. Very cleanly laid out.

6.8 megabytes of downloaded data to read a single article.

That is my entire daily bandwidth budget on my wireless plan.

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#13
post #5

It appears from the outset that Evergreen was operating in bad faith in accepting government stimulus, but they did have their back against the wall. China has dirt cheap labor, no pollution regulations and strong government support -- how can any US manufacturing survive against that?

According the article, and assuming Evergreen and China are honest about environmental regulations, the labor prices are not the real issue here. It's grants and loans made by the Chinese banks and local governments that are making up the bulk of the savings. Still, $300 per month per employee in China vs $5400 in Massachusetts is going to turn some attention to China regardless of other costs.

Would be interesting to know how polluting these factories are. I visited a solar panel factory in China and it was pretty much as described here: clean, white rooms, automated machines, protective clothing for staff. Didn't look like there was much sign of pollution.

The other question is the long term effect of this export of work to China. Can they really make a profit at this rate, or are they hoping that by selling below cost and concentrating manufacturing within China they will eventually be able to invest in research at a better return and one day start extracting economic rents on their monopoly in manufacturing knowledge.

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#14
post #5

It appears from the outset that Evergreen was operating in bad faith in accepting government stimulus, but they did have their back against the wall. China has dirt cheap labor, no pollution regulations and strong government support -- how can any US manufacturing survive against that?

According the article, and assuming Evergreen and China are honest about environmental regulations, the labor prices are not the real issue here. It's grants and loans made by the Chinese banks and local governments that are making up the bulk of the savings. Still, $300 per month per employee in China vs $5400 in Massachusetts is going to turn some attention to China regardless of other costs.

This is the truly frustrating part of the article. It's so disheartening to hear that in spite of bailouts that we've made to the major financial institutions in the US, they won't lend to restart the economy and keep people employed.

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According the article, and assuming Evergreen and China are honest about environmental regulations, the labor prices are not the real issue here. It's grants and loans made by the Chinese banks and local governments that are making up the bulk of the savings. Still, $300 per month per employee in China vs $5400 in Massachusetts is going to turn some attention to China regardless of other costs.

Would be interesting to know how polluting these factories are. I visited a solar panel factory in China and it was pretty much as described here: clean, white rooms, automated machines, protective clothing for staff. Didn't look like there was much sign of pollution. The other question is the long term effect of this export of work to China. Can they really make a profit at this rate, or are they hoping that by sell…

well, the other thing to consider is whether China is basically trying to do what Walmart did to it's competitors.

If you can undercut competition to the point where your competitors drop out, then you have free reign to do whatever you wish in the market, since you have a monopoly.

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#16
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be interesting to know how polluting these factories are. I visited a solar panel factory in China and it was pretty much as described here: clean, white rooms, automated machines, protective clothing for staff. Didn't look like there was much sign of pollution. The other question is the long term effect of this export of work to China. Can they really make a profit at this rate, or are they hoping that by sell…

well, the other thing to consider is whether China is basically trying to do what Walmart did to it's competitors. If you can undercut competition to the point where your competitors drop out, then you have free reign to do whatever you wish in the market, since you have a monopoly.

This depends on how quickly you can ramp up capacity if China starts to increase prices or decrease supply. My guess with developed countries is that the answer to that is "not quickly", as we tend to be more fastidious about bureaucracy. The rate of ramping back up capacity decreases even quicker once China starts to get an R&D advantage from economies of scale and years of research into improving their processes. Compare the hoo hah over rare earth metals.

Who's responsible for long-term planning of renewables in the US? The first result in DDG for "US renewable energy plan" is "US renewable energy plan 'shortsighted'":

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/10/...

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#17
So we're loaning the finance industry trillion dollars at essentially zero interest rate just so they can lend it back to federal government by buying treasuries and pocket the difference (and thus "recover from the crisis"), while China lends tens of billions dollars more than US does to solar energy companies. I hope I'm not the only one who finds the implications scary.

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#18
This is exactly what is going to happen with the lithium battery technologies being developed for hybrids - lots of federal money being poured into research with no restrictions on where they are going to be made.

LiFePo4 battery technology was invented in the USA but now is mostly made in China.

Why do we protect corn with massive subsidies and massive import tariffs (creating horror shows of destructive ethanol, food products and animal feed) but not our technology and jobs?

Re: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

#19

I upvoted because I hadn't seen this layout for the NYT website before. It's kind of neat, especially when you click the X button the top right. Very cleanly laid out.

It was completely unreadable for me, on firefox, ubuntu lynx. Fortunately, readability cleaned it up.
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