Biden's Subsidies Fuel China's Solar Dominance, Not Clean Energy!
A THINK PIECE ON SOLAR PANELS
Finally, someone who has dug deep into the assumptions:
You really have to read the article. It’s a humdinger. But first, a warning to the tree huggers who buy the concept that paying more taxes to multiple home owning, jet setting globalists in order to eliminate a gas that is 0.04% of the atmosphere and for which all plants are dependent upon.
My friends and colleagues over at International Man said it well:
But back to the report. Check out these snippets:
Last August, in an amalgamation of “The Green New Deal” meets “Build Back Better,” President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gifted the renewables industry with billions of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded subsidies.
What few backing the bill realised was that the largest beneficiary would likely be China due to its expansive grip on the global solar photovoltaic (PV) industry. Worse than that, it might end up misdirecting the world’s clean energy efforts into dirtier than appreciated energy technologies because of the country’s ongoing dependence on coal-fired energy.
In essence, the IEA base its assumptions on how much CO2 is produced in manufacturing solar panels based on European energy data rather than Chinese energy data.
China relies on coal more intensively than Europe:
The IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher Enrico Mariutti suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production. If this estimate is accurate, solar would not compare favourably with natural gas, which is around 50 gCO2/kWh with carbon capture and 400 to 500 without.
Here is the conclusion:
A picture emerges of an aspirational Western industry captured lock, stock, and barrel by secretive, coal-loving Beijing. It’s a worry for the West’s economic development, never mind energy security and climate action. If solar is anything to go by, the great transition seems less based on data than a mixture of blind faith and vested interests.
Perhaps the broad populace will awaken to this blind faith when electricity prices go through the roof and standards of living decline significantly. Either way, the truth will eventually come into plain sight.
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- Chris MacIntosh
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