Prices of solar energy and wind turbines are dropping world wide. This article in the New York Times highlights the role of China in this market. The bottom line is as follows: China by now is the world leading manufacturer of solar panels and wind turbines. By this is achieves economics of scale and can offer products at a relatively low world market price.

There are two immediate consequences:

1.Installation of renewable energies becomes cheaper world wide
2.Manufacturing competitors in other countries have a tough stand competing against Chinese manufacturers

Why could China get into this position in first place? The NYT article delivers the following explanation:

“China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year […] In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively.”

The debate pro/con nuclear power from the climate perspective is still open. The Chinese evidence of the economies of scale, however, provides some quantitative indication in favor of phasing out conventional plans rapidly.

Innovate

Could you please explain how to innovate with wages so low that it won't feed your or my family let alone house payment, car payment, meds, leisure, etc, etc.

Would you rather have a thousand wind turbines and import them from China or would you rather have 500 wind turbines and produce them in the United States (each at a total cost of a billion dollars)?

That's the real question.

We can choose to protect our renewable energy industry but the cost will be to all consumers in the form of higher electricity bills.

Or we can allow the free market to produce renewable energy at the cheapest possible prices, reducing the total cost of energy for society.

Innovate

Haven't worked in the tech industry have you. Here's how it works.

1) Invent a cool new technology.

2) Start company to sell new technology.

3) Find out that you can't afford American wages for tech support, tech writing and ongoing maintenance.

4) Outsource everything you can.

5) Sell to another larger company that will outsource everything it can.

Since everyone's outsourcing, their prices reflect this and you can't afford not to do the same. Thus we all race to the bottom.

they'll just blame "the rich", raise taxes even more!

I keep wondering when this administration will tax the rich more! Seems like they just want to keep giving more money to the rich!

+1 Why some feel otherwise is beyond me.

They still think he is "Left." He was never "Left." This country is so far right almost anyone left of Reagan looks like a screaming lefty. Obama is about as left as Nixon.

When it comes to renewable energy innovation and equipment manufacturing, China is challenging the West, and the outcome will decide where millions of jobs go in the future.

As The New York Times reported recently, "China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the United States last year to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels. ... These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines, and other gear manufactured in China."