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by themaninthedark 458 days ago
Are they that far ahead with manufacturing improvements?

The NYT article you linked talked about them using cheap(polluting) coal power and cheap(slave labor) mineral inputs.

1 comments

Yes, although the rest of the world is catching up, and manufacturers in many countries now sell solar modules at prices much lower than the prices that launched the "dumping" allegations in 02012.

As for coal power specifically, being polluting doesn't make it cheap; it's economically uncompetitive with both solar and wind, and in China specifically, the coal has to be imported from abroad, making it not just more expensive but also a national security risk.

China has coal mines...I remember several disasters associated with them.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-has-more-than-...

>current large-scale coal mine capacity is 3.88 billion tons per year

However Wiki does say that it's use is uneconomical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China

Being polluting does make it cheap. The pollution controls, filters etc add nothing to generating capacity and only add cost.