Comment by derektank
2 days ago
The sarcasm seems unwarranted. The US has better air quality than any other country with over 50 million people and better air quality than the EU on average. Most of the countries above America on the list are either islands directly in the path of tradewinds, largely unpopulated, or the nordics. Now, a lot of this is simply the fact that Americans haven't embraced diesel and that America is a relatively low density country. But air quality is really quite good in most of the US. The Clean Air Act and other environmental legislation was very successful.
> The US has better air quality than any other country with over 50 million people and better air quality than the EU on average
And that remarkable achievement was only possible because the US does not produce evil solar panels on its soil, do I understand you right?
No? I didn't make the parent comment and I was mostly taking issue with the implication in your comment that US air quality was in some way deficient
But since you asked, while manufacturing solar panels does not itself pose a threat to air quality, environmental and air quality regulations obviously raise the cost of doing business in the manufacturing sector broadly, which makes the US less competitive up and down the supply chain than China. That's obviously not the entire story, but it's certainly part of it.