Trump administration is about to make solar power too expensive for Americans
Up to 88,000 American jobs are at risk if the Trump administration imposes tariffs on solar photovoltaic imports, a move that is increasingly likely after a recommendation issued by the International Trade Commission on Tuesday. Following contentious hearings in a trade case that has rocked the industry, the commissioners recommended tariffs of 35 percent on some imported panels.
The implications of a decision to raise the cost of foreign imports — now resting entirely with the president — will ripple through the energy industry, from installers to the utility sector and even the military, which has come to rely on solar for many of its operations. But nowhere will the impact be greater than on disadvantaged communities that are just beginning to reap the benefits of renewable energy, and the jobs that come with it.
Up to 88,000 American jobs are at risk if the Trump administration imposes tariffs on solar photovoltaic imports, a move that is increasingly likely after a recommendation issued by the International Trade Commission on Tuesday. Following contentious hearings in a trade case that has rocked the industry, the commissioners recommended tariffs of 35 percent on some imported panels.
The implications of a decision to raise the cost of foreign imports — now resting entirely with the president — will ripple through the energy industry, from installers to the utility sector and even the military, which has come to rely on solar for many of its operations. But nowhere will the impact be greater than on disadvantaged communities that are just beginning to reap the benefits of renewable energy, and the jobs that come with it.
Meanwhile, the growing industry has created tens of thousands of solar industry jobs — more than 260,000 Americans are now directly employed in the solar industry. More than half of those are working in installation and sales positions that are accessible to people with no advanced degrees.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/358641-trump-administration-is-about-to-make-solar-power-too-expensive
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The reason is that it hasn't worked, isn't working, and won't work to address climate change.
The entire solar industry, built after 50 years of mindless cheering, can't match the annual growth of the dangerous natural gas industry, for which the solar industry is merely lipstick on a very, very, very, very dangerous pig, since dangerous fossil fuel waste, including the waste of the so called "green" natural gas industry, is dumped directly into the planetary atmosphere.
The solar industry is a toxic, semi-conductor based industry with a potentially horrible - and given the distribution of cadmium in Chinese rice fields, already horrible - environmental profile.
Like most toxic enterprises, the idea is to produce the materials cheaply by exploiting the health and welfare of fairly impoverished laborers.
The complaint is that without access to those laborers about whom the bourgeois western world couldn't give a shit - better these people suffer so that westerners can declare themselves "green" - solar will become "unaffordable."
In ethical terms, it has always been and will always remain unaffordable. The world squandered over a trillion dollars on solar energy in the last ten years alone - money that might have been used to address real human problems in a realistic way - with the result that the annual increase in dangerous fossil fuel waste accumulations is unprecedented and accelerating:
