Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Solar panels
A good example of the difference between China and US production is the solar panel business. First off, most solar panels are made in China.
In 2022, about 1.9% of the solar panels installed in the U.S. were made in the U.S. The vast majority, roughly 88%, were imported, primarily from Asia, with China accounting for nearly 78% of all panels globally.
China not only makes the solar panels but they use coal energy to mine the rare earths while they contaminate the ground water, use cheap labor sometimes child labor while forcing people to move out of their homes. They have no worker protections and the government subsidizes the industry.
In the early part of 2024, over 100 US solar companies went bankrupt. This number is significantly higher than previous years, and some sources even estimate that at least 100 more companies could fail. Major solar companies that have closed or filed for bankruptcy include SunPower, Pink Energy, and Lumio.
Mining rare earths in the US would be opposed by environmental groups. The one US mine in Navada was shut down in 2002 and reopened in 2017. Even today the ore is sent to China for processing because of environmental concerns. The US prefers to send the processing out of the country to protect the environment.
Old solar panels are sent to landfills.
Solar panels contain several potentially hazardous materials, primarily due to the metals used in their construction. These include lead, cadmium, silver, and arsenic. Additionally, some solar panels may contain hexafluoroethane and polyvinyl fluoride, which are also considered toxic, as well as copper indium selenide and copper indium gallium (di)selenide.
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