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by ajross 1428 days ago
That may be so, but it remains the case that every wafer that comes out of a solar panel fab gets sold, with a large backlog of demand in every market. And the supply side is responding to that by building out capacity rapidly. Tariffs may or may not be "fucked up" as a matter of principle, but in practice they aren't a barrier.
2 comments
epistasis 1428 days ago
They get sold, just not in the US, or specifically, Texas, as the original poster was asking.

This hurts us in the US, quite a bit. And I wouldn't mind, if it meant that there was going to be a more robust US industry for panel production, as that would be fantastic. But the tariffs don't appear to be designed for that, but instead to benefit a few tiny manufacturers that are not expanding.

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ajross 1427 days ago
> They get sold, just not in the US, or specifically, Texas, as the original poster was asking.

I don't think that's correct. Or at least it seems to require evidence. On the whole the US solar market has been extremely robust, with dropping prices and rapid buildout. It's possible that we're somehow lagging the rest of the world somehow, but that seems unlikely.

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epistasis 1426 days ago
Why wouldn't massive uncertainty about prices hinder us? A strong market doesn't stay strong in the face of massive uncertainty about prices being 2x what they should be. Instead of massive growth, like all prior years, we are seeing contraction:

> The number of shipping containers delivering solar panels to American ports during the first three months of the year was down 17% from the prior quarter and 26% from a year earlier, according to research firm Panjiva. The drop came ahead of a March 28 announcement that the Commerce Department is looking into whether solar manufacturers used factories in Southeast Asia to circumvent American tariffs on imports from China.

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...

This is the US messing up its solar industry with no productive gain.

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TaylorAlexander 1428 days ago
Is every wafer that comes out of Asia being purchased in the USA or have tariffs shifted demand to other countries? How have tariffs affected future purchase orders and new factory build outs? I’m just having a hard time believing they have a negligible effect when the worlds second largest economy adds added cost to solar panel imports.
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Godel_unicode 1428 days ago
They’re pushing purchases to places where there’s already significant renewables and nuclear at the grid level. All uses of solar are not equivalently useful in reducing green house gas emissions.
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