Politicians used to tell us that we could save the planet by squeezing booze out of corn and then burning it in our car. Ethanol subsidies today are considered a boondoggle that benefits farmers but not Mother Earth. One problem: the massive amount of energy that goes into producing ethanol.
Guess what new “green technology” has similar problems?
Here are some passages from a New York Times piece on the solar trade war between the U.S. and China.
The manufacture of polysilicon requires enormous amounts of energy — so much electricity that it typically takes the first year of operation of the panel to generate as much power as was required to make the polysilicon in it. The process requires superheating large volumes of material in electric-arc furnaces, including the melting of quartzite rock at more than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit….
China’s own polysilicon industry is controversial because it relies heavily on electricity generated by coal-fired power plants, and because weak environmental controls at Chinese polysilicon factories have resulted in toxic spills that have fouled streams and rivers.
China’s own polysilicon industry is controversial because it relies heavily on electricity generated by coal-fired power plants, and because weak environmental controls at Chinese polysilicon factories have resulted in toxic spills that have fouled streams and rivers.
And then there’s this nugget:
Chinese manufacturers have studied moving solar cell factories directly to the United States but have largely rejected it in favor of other countries because it takes so long to comply with the many American regulations for opening new factories that use a lot of chemicals, according to a Chinese industry executive, who spoke on condition that neither he nor his employer be identified.
Government subsidies and regulations, it turns out, have consequences other than those intended.
