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Comment by adrianN

2 days ago

Solar panels are not that hard to produce. China just does it cheaper than other countries. Any industrialized country can easily set up the necessary infrastructure if they choose to do so for strategic reasons.

They’re not hard to produce but they are hard to produce really cheap as in as cheap as China. For lots of reasons (state aid being one, extreme competition being another).

It’s hard in a capitalist country to do things that don’t make business sense - eg long term thinking. So I don’t see any reasonable route where China isn’t still making all the panels any time soon.

  • As long as China keeps making the panels and selling them for cheap there is no problem at all with that. When they decide to stop doing that other countries can pick up after a short ramp up time, for a little more money.