“American solar operations should be rapidly expanding to keep pace with the skyrocketing demand for these products. But that is not what has been happening…. There seems to be one primary explanation for this; that is, that China is cheating.”
-Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
C.S. Lewis observed that objections about “cheating” or “unfair” arrangements reveal that humans — despite whatever relativistic claptrap they might sometimes spout — believe there is a universal right and wrong.
If Ron Wyden thinks “China is cheating” in the game of selling solar panels, that means he thinks there are actual rules to the game. That not all is fair in silicon and photons. I wonder what counts as fair and what’s cheating.
Wyden’s “cheating” charge was in support of a trade suit brought by U.S. solar panel manufacturers accusing China of “using billions of dollars in government subsidies to help gain sales in the American market,” as the New York Times summarizes it.
But what does the U.S. government do? Well, it also “us[es] billions of dollars in government subsidies” to help solar panel makers.
For instance, here’s our Energy Department crowing about a $1.46 billion loan guarantee for a solar-panel project, intended to “help bring down the cost of solar and strengthen our position as a global clean energy leader.” And here’s $1.45 billion for a solar farm in Arizona — so we’re already at “billions of dollars in subsidies.”
As far as manufacturing solar panels, there was $400 million for Abound Solar, $150 million for 1366 Solar, $197 million for SoloPower, and of course, $535 million for Solyndra.
The Treasury Department hands out subsidies for renewable energy installations, too, and about $1.3 billion of those have gone to solar projects. States subsidize the manufacture and installation of solar panels. Our Export-Import Bank also subsidizes the export of solar panels to Europe, South America, and Asia.
We’ll see how the Commerce Department handles this trade dispute. But our solar industry complaining about foreign subsidies is a bit rich.
UPDATE: On Twitter, the Washington Post’s Brad Plumer points out that I glossed over the different types of solar subsidies. Those two billion-dollar-plus subsidies are for solar generation, which does not directly subsidize U.S. solar manufacturing. The SoloPower, Solyndra, Abound Solar, and 1366 Solar subsidies are all for manufacturing — thus could be called “cheating” by the Chinese version of Ron Wyden.
