Renewable Energy is Dirty and Unethical
So-called renewable energy is reliant on fossil fuels and unethical, unsustainable Chinese manufacturing practices.
Proponents of wind and solar energy insist that using renewable energy is saving the planet, because it avoids adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
However, as most solar and wind-energy technology is manufactured in China, the push for renewables is increasing our dependence on China and turns a blind eye to the unethical practices used in Chinese manufacturing, abuses of human rights and appalling environmental record of Chinese industry.
These facts are never mentioned by the Greens or the ALP, and are rarely mentioned in the media.
The extent of the world’s dependence on China’s solar-panel manufacturing business was recently documented in a recent Special Report, “Solar PV Global Supply Chains”, published online by the International Energy Agency (IEA) which is an enthusiastic supporter of alternative energy.
Nevertheless, the IEA report is positively alarming.
It says:
“Global solar PV [photo-voltaic] manufacturing capacity has increasingly moved from Europe, Japan and the United States to China over the last decade. China has invested over $US50 billion in new PV supply capacity — ten times more than Europe — and created more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011.
“Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80 per cent. This is more than double China’s share of global PV demand.
“In addition, the country is home to the world’s 10 top suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment.”
Utterly Dependent
The hard fact is that the entire world is now dependent on Chinese-manufactured solar panels.
The IEA report indicates that this trend will continue in the future.
It says:
“The world will almost completely rely on China for the supply of key building blocks for solar-panel production through 2025. Based on manufacturing capacity under construction, China’s share of global polysilicon, ingot and wafer production will soon reach almost 95 per cent.
“Today, China’s Xinjiang province accounts for 40 per cent of global polysilicon manufacturing. Moreover, one out of every seven panels produced worldwide is manufactured by a single facility.”
The IEA concludes:
“This level of concentration in any global supply chain would represent a considerable vulnerability; solar PV is no exception.”
While the report states that it is imperative to diversify the sources of solar panels, and build manufacturing plants to do it, it effectively recommends that Western governments increase subsidies for the manufacturing of solar panels, so as to compete with China. However, the report itself shows why this is unlikely to happen.
Slavery and Fossil Fuels
It says:
“China is the most cost-competitive location to manufacture all components of the solar PV supply chain. Costs in China are 10 per cent lower than in India, 20 per cent lower than in the United States, and 35 per cent lower than in Europe.”
The report glosses over how this cost advantage has been achieved.
China’s cost advantage relies on the availability of reliable low-cost energy (supplied incidentally by fossil fuels), and because China has an almost inexhaustible supply of low-cost labour (in some cases, slave labour), and environmental standards that would not be accepted anywhere in the civilised world.
The same picture emerges in relation to wind turbines, used to produce wind power.
ScienceDirect reported in 2014:
“Before 2005, there was only one Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer listed among the top 10 in the world; in 2012, four were listed as the world top 2, 7, 8 and 10, respectively.”
More recently, Scientific American reported that Xinjiang Goldwind had replaced US giant General Electric as the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, five of the world’s top 10 manufacturers were Chinese, and China supplies over half of the world’s wind turbines.
Many of the reasons for the rise in Chinese wind-turbine technology are the same as for solar panels: low-cost energy supplied mainly from coal, very low labour costs, a disregard of environmental standards that apply in other countries, and access to the world’s best manufacturing technology.
Additionally, the Chinese Government requires power companies to purchase the entire output of China’s wind farms, with the cost transferred to consumers.
The massive growth of China’s wind and solar energy industries not only earns billions in foreign currency, but also allows China to masquerade as seriously committed to reducing greenhouse gases through the use of wind and solar energy, while expanding its use of fossil fuels.
And our government and the media have fallen for it!
___
Originally published at News Weekly.
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Unfortunately, the electricity generated by renewable infrastructure will not be sufficient to supply the base load electricity required to build new, replacement renewable generators. Once we reach net zero, we will not be able to manufacture the infrastructure ourselves, and so will be totally reliant on China – who have no intention of ever reaching net zero. They will have the economic domination they have been promised.