That’s right. China is preparing to be the world’s Green OPEC. Who’s ready to challenge them on that?
As the West kicks fossil fuels to the curb, it is turning to only two sources of energy to generate electricity: wind and solar. Wind is still a European business, but that will change. Solar used to be a European business. It used to also be an American one. Now it’s a Chinese industry. Of the top 10 solar companies in the world, 8 are Chinese. None are European (Norway’s REC Group used to be there, but it’s now owned by ChemChina). One is American — First SolarFSLR +5.8% of Ohio. They also manufacture in Asia, though their technology is different than most so a lot of their supply chain is local.
“One of the biggest mistakes the West has done on green policies to cut CO2 emissions and trying to reduce dependence on oil and gas producing nations is that the transition to renewable energy puts the West at the mercy of China,” says David Zaikin, an energy industry consultant and founder of Key Elements Group in London.
The Biden Administration wants to reduce fossil fuel use and the President has said on his campaign trail that he was aiming to have upwards of 500 million solar panels installed nationwide. Where will they be made?
Competing with the 8 behemoths of China will be a tough slog. The economies of scale there are tough to beat.
Worse yet, China continues to raise the stakes with large subsidies supporting billions of dollars of Chinese solar industry expansion. “Beijing’s goal is global dominance of this industry,” says Jeff Ferry, chief economist for the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) in Washington. They published a 19 page report on China and the solar industry last week. In it, Ferry said that Chinese dominance along solar supply chains threatens U.S. energy independence and U.S. technology leadership in solar and other clean energy technologies. Read more----
