INDUSTRY I ISSUES S
olar and photovoltaic (PV) technologies have not had the same business growth path as other industries do. Even semiconductor manufacturing, often cited as the most similar industry, had a completely different path than the subsidy heavy solar and PV one. Industries like the semiconductor found the path of sustainable success through innovation and an ability to provide products that consumers would pay for. Of course there were no competing technologies that semiconductors were trying to replace. Herein lies the biggest difference. Solar energy is attempting to displace an incumbent energy source that is still, in many cases, cheaper than the upstart technology trying to push into this lucrative market.
Many people use this difference as a battering ram against the benefits of solar energy offering financially accurate statements regarding subsidised industries. Accurate when viewed through the fiscal needs of the capitalist structure industries function within. From such a perspective the concerns are valid but it is only one perspective of the industry and is not the one that forms the origins and foundations of the current solar boom.
Solar and PV based energy has been actively sought as an alternative source to traditional methods in a bid to provide options as the Earth faces a future with a diminishing supply of raw materials. Added to this is the environmental impact the
discharge of such energy sources has on the planet. Science is still arguing about how much damage industrial waste does and although this clouds the issue it remains one of the strongest drivers for an alternative energy source. The current boom in solar and alternative energies is a direct result of governmental policies to develop renewable energy sources in a long term plan to provide future energy needs.
Unfortunately both the financial and political worlds function very much around short term goals and fast if not immediate returns. The current trade dispute between the USA and China that has a sharp focus in the solar industry highlights the differences in the long term visions and short term expectations. What initially looks a tit-for-tat
disagreement involving price fixing, product dumping and market
manipulation begins to appear a much broader
Trade concerns confuse global industry
The solar industry has become a flashpoint in recent trade issues between the USA and China. A sector of the industry is claiming illegal business practices from Chinese companies are responsible for USA domestic decline. With competing industry bodies dividing the USA industry on the issue it appears that there is more to the situation. David Ridsdale discovers there is a number of broader and conflicting issues involved and the outcomes will affect the entire industry.
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www.solar-international.net I Issue I 2012
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