Early And Often

One fantastic benefit, at least to me anyway, to having designed and installed my rooftop PV array in 2007 was that I was able to buy solar panels built in Tennessee -- in the U.S. of A.

That I should have these things on my roof for the next 21 years means I should never have even considered Chinese manufactured panels...and indeed, the Chinese weren't major producers back then (like 2007 was last century or something).

Today, the Chinese have taken a significant share of the manufacturing away from the US, and for all you who only think price the sole fucking arbiter of value that should be welcomed news to you. Now you can enjoy solar for a third less than I paid (although the net price is the same, see below), even though you will blow that third on increased stealth taxation providing for jobless benefits and retraining programs to former solar panel manufacturers here in Tennessee and elsewhere...say, Freemont, Ca.

Now Solyndra -- I'm paying, along with you (if you live in California), unemployment benefits for 1,100 former workers for a single company that [presumably] couldn't compete against a flood tide of cheap Chinese panels from such stellar, reputable companies as:

Shanghai Woneng Solar Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd.
Suzhou Shenglong PV Tech Co., Ltd.
Jinhua Dokio Technology Co., Ltd.
JM Solar Technology Co., Ltd. of Hangzhou
Nanjing Baoao S & T Co., Ltd.
Xuzhou Oumeide Energy Saving Technology Co., Ltd.
Shandong Astun Solar Electric Technology Co., Ltd.
Wenzhou Dingwen New Energy S & T Co., Ltd.
Zhongshan City Zhengxin Lamp Decorating Co., Ltd.
and the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

Someday soon the cylindrical panels that Solyndra developed and designed will also find their manufacturing performed in Hangzhou, too, as this concept is probably too good to die alongside our $535,000,000 taxpayer loss on our ongoing losing effort to shore up American manufacturing against $3.50 an hour Chinese labor and 9% annual domestic health care premium increases.

I wonder when our government and its constituents will, once and for all, cave in and accept that our 11% manufacturing sector is destined to become 10% by 2014, 9% by 2016, 8% by 2019, to bottom out at some floor (I'd wager) at about 3-4% -- will stop blowing money on propping up manufacturing, and accept that the U.S. position in the global economy is to consume stuff, not to produce it.

And while we're at it, pin the fact that our consumers only give a fuck about price rather than quality and craftsmanship, and that we cannot compete globally because of this on gasp! Obama. An impeachable act of treason! Fine. Future solar will only be more expensive as this single event (representing one half of one percent of the DOE renewable-energy budget) threatens to kill off all government incentives championed by the Obama administration to build a renewable energy industry in the U.S.

Well, we were never going to get such an industry, my friend. You won't have the luxury of a $26/hour PV manufacturing job and instead will smile as you take in the dry cleaning for other dry cleaners on their days off for $13 an hour. No need to wonder why wages have remained flat for the past decade and will remain flat for the next -- Chinese laborers will likely see a 30-40% increase in that same time frame and they'll be even more grateful that you continue to fucker away domestic manufacturing to save a few more bucks on a plastic salad shooter.

Of course, as PV prices drop due to the continued torrent of Chinese imported shit, the federal and local subsidies will dry up, too, which is exactly how subsidies are designed to work. The net cost of solar is still where it was in 2007, yet I'd argue that with a few hundred thousand rooftops enhanced by Chinese panels the actual cost will be much higher in the long run -- decreased production, piss-poor mounting systems, cracking/shorting MC connections, panel/frame/lamination separations -- you know, the things cheap imported shit always does after a few months/years -- it fails early and often.

Solyndra will fall off the Republican radars in a month or so, some other Obama "scandal" will take center stage, and 1,100 more manufacturing jobs will have found their way over to Hangzhou by that time.