WTO swats down India’s massive solar initiative
grist.orgOfftopic: currently, anyone can make their own solar panels for around $450 for 2kW of PV cells (Amazon, eBay, AliBaba) plus another $50 for busbars and diodes; bonus points for using recycled glass and other free "junk."
If folks require cheap solar at scale, PV cell and panel mfgrs need much more automation... which sucks for most workers but is "good" for the planet, because PV cells are easy commodities (ask Elon Musk or anyone in that market)... durable PV panels are labor-intensive (as I can attest). Maybe an union shop can deliver quality for value panels at huge volume and have employees with a decent standard of living.
This is such a hit piece of a article.
If India wants to install solar cells they can, if they want to compete globally for solar cell production they can. Contrary to the false claims in the article nothing is stopping them.
On top of that requiring a percentage to be produced locally is just asking for trouble in a country with as much corruption is India.
> Said Cossar-Gilbert: “Trade policies are preventing a sustainable future.”
Oh please. It's not solar power at any cost, that will just cause more problems than it solves.
> On top of that requiring a percentage to be produced locally is just asking for trouble in a country with as much corruption is India.
Not sure that I understand the reasoning behind this. Are you saying that if a country has corruption then it shouldn't manufacture? If that's the case, you have excluded 90% of the countries including China from manufacturing.
No I am not saying that.
I am saying requiring it is the problem. Requiring is another word for saying "at any cost", or in other words "with lots of bribes".
I'm guessing they also have an option to leave the WTO? Why don't they do that?