>How does politics prevent electricity companies from building solar plants.
By whacking massive tariffs on imported solar panels.
They pretend it's done for the benefit of American solar manufacturers. It's not. It's done for the benefit of coal and gas. If they just wanted to help American solar manufacturers they'd give them subsidies to offset what they (erroneously) considered "unfair" competition from China.
A subsidy is a government cost and likely needs more approvals than A tariff which is a source of income for the government. One was accomplished with executive order while the other would likely have to go through congress.
The reason for the tariffs is definitely related to why the costs are so low.
1) Chinese manufacturers stole American technology and are producing without having paid the R&D.
2) China is heavily subsidizing the industry on many levels all the way down to raw materials. If China were a company in the US we'd be calling them out for violating our monopoly laws, driving everyone else out of business.
I don't support tariffs on anything under any circumstances, but I think it's important not to let the discussion get framed as a simple: Obama/Trump hate solar because donors. There's a bigger geopolitical game being played here.
I skimmed the state department report justifying the tariffs and one of the justifications they gave was "local governments in China promoted local solar companies on their websites. This amounts to free advertising, which is a subsidy".
The phrase "clutching at straws" jumped instantly to mind. I think they weren't expecting anybody except the Chinese to actually read it. There were zero reports in the US media on its contents. They basically just reported that the report existed.
I have seen precisely zero evidence for 1. Frankly, Chinese solar tech beats US tech hands down. The US might be better at making ridiculously expensive panels with 2% extra efficiency to go on satellites but Chinese companies aren't even competing in that market - their tech is centered around making panels that are acceptably efficient with aggressive cost cutting in their manufacturing process. They're hands down the best in the world at that.
China does get an implicit subsidy via the suppressed yuan but that applies equally to all Chinese products, not specifically solar panels, so if you're going to slap 30% tariffs on solar panels why not assembled iphones too?
The geopolitical game being played here involves one of misdirection. If you follow the trail of money it becomes clear what is really going on. The US solar manufacturing industry is small and makes almost no political donations. The US solar installation industry - who lobby against tariffs - is much larger and contributes much more. Both are completely dwarfed by political contributions from coal, oil and gas.
The idea that Obama and Trump (the latter especially not being known as being a friend of clean energy) are simply trying to help a weak and politically irrelevant industry out of their green, green hearts and only coincidentally helping their "real" friends I frankly consider an insult to my intelligence, but hey, people lap this shit up.
In 2009-ish China announced subsidies of basically half the cost of any large scale solar installations. The Chinese government has been giving solar companies below market rate loans. According to Scientific American China chipped in $47 Billion to build its solar industry.
This is, of course, in addition to the standard protectionist industry subsidies like the Joint Venture rules, subsidies on raw materials like steel, or transportation of such goods via rail, etc.
The tariffs under Obama were much more specific as to country of origin, and Chinese manufacturers quickly dodged them by moving. The current tariffs are in essence new in that they apply much more broadly and are not specific to China.
By whacking massive tariffs on imported solar panels.
They pretend it's done for the benefit of American solar manufacturers. It's not. It's done for the benefit of coal and gas. If they just wanted to help American solar manufacturers they'd give them subsidies to offset what they (erroneously) considered "unfair" competition from China.