Casting a Harsh Light On Chinese Solar Panels 149
New submitter Eugriped3z writes with an article in the New York Times that "indicates that manufacturing defect rates for solar panels manufactured in China vary widely, anywhere from 5-22%. Secrecy in the terms of settlements negotiated by attorneys representing multi-million dollar installations perpetuate the problem by masking the identity of unscrupulous or incompetent actors. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that unit labor costs in Mexico are now lower than in China."
Yeah, not just that (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, not just that (Score:5, Insightful)
So you paid before you got a sample? or the first delivery?
That seems fraught with peril.
Payment in advance not unusual (Score:5, Informative)
So you paid before you got a sample? or the first delivery?
Not unusual to have to pay in advance for a product made in China unless you are a big player. I wouldn't ship to a company in another country without cash up front no matter what the quantity was.
That seems fraught with peril.
That would be correct. Doing business in China is a genuinely risky proposition. I used to do work in global sourcing and have spent a lot of time trying to buy parts in Mexico, India and China. You do so at your own risk.
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I would have assumed some third party would have held the money in escrow until delivery and confirmation of the parts meeting spec.
Is there no method to do that?
Re:Payment in advance not unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't even do escrow when they buy a house. But they should. But I guess the real estate lobby wouldn't like that at all.
Re:Payment in advance not unusual (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, people put $500 in escrow when looking at houses all the time. How much earnest money is put into escrow depends highly on location and value of property. It should ideally also reflect how much a buyer wants the property.
When I bought my house I put a lot of money in escrow. When is that not the normal method?
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I think GP was talking about depositing the whole price into escrow, until the house was turned over in good order and no major defects have been found or suchlike.
No idea why, though - usually you get possession the day you close, and you're allowed to make all the third-party home inspections that you can afford (and the seller will then have to either fix what's found, or you can back out of the deal and keep your earnest money if you or your agent is even halfway competent when it comes to making the ea
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It's probably because there's a lawyer handling the closing of the deal. The lawyer has certain legal obligations and can be sued if they don't handle the closing correctly. The two parties meet at the lawyer's office, the seller hands over the keys and deed to the house, the buyer hands over the cashier's check, and that's that. The lawyer later gives the seller their portion of the proceeds, the real estate agent their portion, pays the applicable government taxes, etc.
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Huh?
Last house I bought, we put down earnest money under the conditions that we would not back out of the deal unless we found something seriously wrong with the property during the sale process, and this being a short-sale committed us to the seller's bank's timeline of 120 days. Had we found something wrong during inspection then the deal could have been called off and we c
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"People don't even do escrow when they buy a house. But they should. But I guess the real estate lobby wouldn't like that at all."
You are entirely incorrect: Every house purchased using a bank loan (i.e 95+%) is transacted through an escrow company with title insurance, and the entities involved in the escrow process are, in fact, the real estate industry.
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Escrow (Score:2)
I would have assumed some third party would have held the money in escrow until delivery and confirmation of the parts meeting spec. Is there no method to do that?
Of course it can be done but it is expensive and not as easy as you might think. For that to work you have to have a very detailed specification and the ability to inspect the product to ensure it meets the specification. Sometimes the only real way to do that is to actually see it being made. If you are doing serious amounts of business in China you pretty much have to have your own people there to manage things and ensure stuff is done properly.
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I don't know where you live, but escrow is typical in PA and NJ.
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Oops sorry wrong guy!
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That may be true, but even more established companies with long term partners in China have suffered a marked decline in quality. And it's certainly not unique to American companies, as I've heard similar problems experienced by the Taiwanese. I'm not sure if the problem is due to arrogance or if the Chinese economy stumbling a lot more they're letting on.
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As long as people are willing to do business with China, why wouldn't the Chinese try to increase their profits by cutting corners? It's just capitalism working as intended.
Re:Yeah, not just that (Score:5, Informative)
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Sure, but again some sort of escrow system could deal with that. Money only gets released as parts pass QA.
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Businesses are in business to make money. There's not a lot of money to be made in standing by principal, so the best you can do is never use that vendor again. If enough customers do that, the bad vendor will suffer and fail. Of course, the exception is if your vendor is the only one that can deliver what you need, then it (usually) makes sense to fight with them. This really doesn't seem like one of those times as there are plenty of other solar panel vendors.
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I've come across quite a few self-described 'Principle Engineers' too. Perhaps they operate on a different moral level?
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Fscking hilarious, when I got business cards at my last job the Administrative Assistant (secretary with title creep) who I was forced to use misspelled it that way. I caught it as soon as I looked at them, thank dog. Then again, almost no one at that place paid any attention at all to what they were doing.
andy
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Mexico! (Score:5, Insightful)
There ya go. At least it's made in North America then. We need to help the Mexicans out anyway what with the Cartels wearing them out and all. Let's buy some from our neighbors.
Re:Mexico! (Score:4, Insightful)
If we want to help with the Cartels we need to end the war on some drugs. That is what funds the majority of these folks operations.
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But how do those funds get to those folks? Courtesy of Wachovia, Bank of America, HSBC etc.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html [bloomberg.com]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc-court-threat-money-laundering-charges [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html [bloomberg.com]
It's not so easy to transfer BILLIONS of dollars if those banks and their friends didn't help. There's blood on the han
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Doubtful, they can get all the weapons they want via other routes. Not like south america has a shortage of AKs.
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Re:Mexico! (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually, no, we don't. Immigration (legal and illegal) from Mexico has fallen very sharply in the past five to seven years. It is thought that net immigration from Mexico to the US may already be in negative figures.
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Americans can retaliate by illegally immigrating to Mexico
Sneaking into Mexico isn't like sneaking into the USA. On their southern border their army shoots illegal immigrants coming from Guatemala on sight.
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I hear Belize is really nice. McAffee's place is for sale I'm pretty sure.
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The story of the Mexican TDIs should be enough to put you off that solution.
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At least it's made in North America then.
I had a good GE dishwasher, so when it died after 20 years I got another one. It was from Mexico and was out of here after 3 years, after several major parts failed.
I used to buy Carhartt jeans. The ones I have from the early 2000's are faded but usable. The ones I bought from the late 2000's are all gone - they moved operations and cotton to Mexico and none of those jeans lasted more than a year before the fabric fell apart.
It may be coincidental in that the com
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The other
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It may be coincidental in that the companies looking to cut way back on quality are the ones moving to Mexico, so maybe it's not Mexico's fault, but the metric for a product consumer is the same - avoid stuff made in Mexico.
I'll take the Mexican stuff over the Chinese. I think you're right about why the quality is so bad. I've known a few companies that were able to get very good quality from their Mexican operations. It takes some effort, but it can be done. I think it's easier than in China though. I've also heard about a place called Estados Unidos de América, but I think it's next to Atlantis.
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Just realize that the GE dishwasher you paid $300 for in 1992 would cost $900 today adjusted for inflation today but you are paying $450. Most consumers will buy the $450 because it's cheap because they don't realize it actually will cost them more money in the long run.
We went through this with a microwave.
You have two options.
An ugly commercial model for a moderate price ($350 to $500) or a consumer model with a 25 year warranty (like "miele" brand) which will cost you $1000.
It's ironic, but it seems wor
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Grats.
Assuming it was a builtin model with at least 1000 watts and 1.2cubic feet of space, 36" form factor and it had a "nice" finish?
If not -- still grats- I had a 700 watt white microwave oven that went 10 years before I gave it away since I remodeled and got a builtin. I was happy with it but wanted the counter space. I don't expect the new one to last 20 years.
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We need to help the Mexicans out anyway
No, we don't. Business-wise, Mexicans are a complete PITA to deal with. I've dealt with people from Europe, China, Canada, and Mexico (and of course the US), and the Mexicans are completely goofy. Everything with them is a giant hassle; a simple transaction that should take 4-5 emails ends up taking 100 emails back and forth. I even had some Mexicans (at a fairly large manufacturing company, not individuals) buy from me by Paypal, then within minutes file a non-re
Re:Mexico! (Score:4, Informative)
Mountain pass mine, in California.
The Chinese were allowed to dump these on the market and kill off our mines at one point. I would hope we would not be stupid enough to let them do that again. Sadly I know we would.
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We still manufacture lots of stuff. Just a few miles from where I am we've got a plant making stuff to ship to china. You'll love it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/georgia-china-2-million-chopsticks_n_872333.html [huffingtonpost.com]
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the regulatory environment has had that mine shut down until very recently
True, but the problematic regulatory environment is in China, not the US. We might be price competitive if we were willing to live in a toxic waste dump like much of China (plenty of Chinese are unhappy about that) but not otherwise. I'd be good with adding tariffs to imports of both raw materials and goods made with those materials to compensate. "Free trade" is an economist's simplistic fantasy and a politicians code phrase for "you're screwed".
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Not pure silicon. They are doped with various materials, often rare earths, in order to get the properties needed for the application.
If I recall, a PV is essentially a diode with the junction exposed to sunlight. The light hitting the cell creates a electron/hole pair, which accumulate to become the voltage that can be sent to a load.
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I could be wrong, but I remember learning that most silicon cell designs don't require particularly high quantities of scarce elements compared to most thin film cells, or that it is at least perfectly possible to make a decent silicon cell without large quantities of scarce elements. Rare earth metals are reasonably cheap today, so it's not really a problem in the short term. It's also likely that there are enormous finds waiting to be found on the third world and under the ocean floor.
The problem with sil
Race to the bottom (Score:5, Interesting)
The good news is that, eventually, this will probably get sorted out. Producers and installers with brands and reputations (not to mention business contracts) to defend will eventually get fed up with dealing with shitty suppliers, who will either clean up their act, go out of business, or retreat to the purgatory of "known to be poor quality", where there's still plenty of business to be had (see again the desktop PC market), but not much money to be made.
Re:Race to the bottom (Score:5, Interesting)
The good news is that, eventually, this will probably get sorted out. Producers and installers with brands and reputations (not to mention business contracts) to defend will eventually get fed up with dealing with shitty suppliers, who will either clean up their act, go out of business, or retreat to the purgatory of "known to be poor quality", where there's still plenty of business to be had (see again the desktop PC market), but not much money to be made.
To a large extent, that's already happened. After being heavily criticized for poor working conditions and high suicide rates, Foxconn increased worker salaries by about 25% and reduced overtime work [nytimes.com] in early 2012. Working conditions are still crappy by Western standards, of course – but they're not so bad by Chinese standards, and seem to be improving. This added pay means that Foxconn isn't going to be competing much for the bottom-end, low-margin business. Instead they are going to focus on high-value-add products like Apple devices. (In fact, Apple is considering making a new, cheaper iPhone with a different supplier – which seems to indicate that Foxconn might be raising the bar a bit on contract prices.) There will still be plenty of factories in China that crank out crap for people who care about nothing but the lowest price, but the Chinese leadership doesn't want their country to be known for producing only junk. They want to move up the value chain.
Re:Race to the bottom (Score:4, Insightful)
The good news is that, eventually, this will probably get sorted out. Producers and installers with brands and reputations (not to mention business contracts) to defend will eventually get fed up with dealing with shitty suppliers, who will either clean up their act, go out of business, or retreat to the purgatory of "known to be poor quality", where there's still plenty of business to be had (see again the desktop PC market), but not much money to be made.
Yah. That's the downside of "The Market Will Work It Out". You have to wait until the market works it out. Which means waiting for enough people with enough influence to go elsewhere. Which can be a very, very long time in some cases. Sometimes never.
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You have to wait until the market works it out.
But it always does in the long run. Of course in the long run we're all dead.
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You have to wait until the market works it out.
But it always does in the long run. Of course in the long run we're all dead.
Actually, there's no law that says it ever has to work out. All you have to do is stay below the threshold of pain. If the only people who won't put up with it don't have the leverage to force a change, the situation will endure until some external factor comes into play.
If I produce a "theft-resistant" package that lacerates and maims the hands of my customers but my customers don't carry enough influence to make me change, I could very well go on crippling people until either a more profitable safer form
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Working conditions are still crappy by Western standards, of course â" but they're not so bad by Chinese standards
Keeping in mind that standard Chinese working conditions before 1990 was wading in a rice paddy all day in the summer heat and winter cold...
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Foxconn's long term plan is to replace many of the Chinese workers with robots:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/02/22/as-china-changes-infamous-foxconn-goes-robotic/ [forbes.com]
Optimists will say they'll find jobs elsewhere. But when the Chinese workers took the US workers jobs, very many US workers did not get jobs elsewhere.
Note that this guy managed to be "best developer" even when outsourcing his work to China for one fifth his salary:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/how-a-model-employee-got-away [theglobeandmail.com]
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Foxconn's long term plan is to replace many of the Chinese workers with robots:
Kind of like the American plan was in the 80's? I'm old enough to remember the emphasis on design for automated assembly. Then cheap labor stepped in, the MNC's got a short term gain, and all the expertise went overseas. So when they automate they'll be where we could've been 20 years ago.
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Robots are cheap enough to replace the jobs of people making $2000 a year in china and they are widely considered for any job making $8000.
You'd starve or die of exposure in america on those wages of course.
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Of course Foxxcon plans to replace 1,000,000 of their workers with machines.
I hear it's not going as well as they wanted but it is not going to badly.
Robots are going to change the basic rules of our economy. A human being can't survive on what a robot costs unless prices on food and living spaces come down.
And with ever increasing population, that doesn't seem so likely.
Somethings got to give in the next 20 years or so.
(and the new apple plant in the US will be almost totally automated too).
addendum (Score:5, Insightful)
It is, again, like the consumer electronics market as a whole. If you are looking for, say, a PC power supply, you can get quality products backed by good warranties and a long track record, but you'll pay a price premium for it. You can also go bargain basement, know that you are getting a lower quality product that has a higher chance or early failure, but be OK with that. But power supplies are a relatively mature market in terms of size, growth rate, component supply chain, and R&D roadmap. Photovoltaics are still very much in flux, and it'll probably take another few years - even a decade or two - before things settle out.
Another parallel with the PC industry: things were simpler when it was small and niche. Think back to the 1970s and 1980s - PCs were not yet a commodity, lots of manufacturing was still taking place in industrialized countries to high standards, there were lots of small- and medium-sized companies that devoted a lot to the design, build, and manufacturing quality, because a bunch of warranty claims would either bankrupt them or kill their brand (which would have the same effect). Computers were purchased and used by fairly knowledgeable people. Then there came an explosion in the late 1980s and 1990s, when there was a feedback loop of commoditization: more widespread use and standardization lead companies to compete on price, which drove down costs, which allowed for more widespread use, etc. Along the way, prices went way down, but quality also suffered along the way.
I will noet that, during that same time period, value went up tremendously. Even if the reject rate of components and finished goods went up, you still got a lot more product for the same amount of money. This is also true in solar: you can get a lot more for the same amount of money these days, even taking into account the higher reject rate. This will continue into the foreseeable future.
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I should note an addendum to my comment about "this will probably get sorted out." There will be stratification in the market. By that I mean that you'll be able to sort out good producers from bad based on quality (and reputation - deserved or not), with price point being a proxy measure of that. People seeking reliability, and who are willing to pay for it, will know where they can go. Those who don't care if they get early failures, can shoulder the risk of early failures, or just can't afford better will likewise know where they can go.
You wouldn't want this state of affairs for your food supply, so why would you accept it for manufactured goods?
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What makes you think we don't have that kind of stratification of price/quality in our food supply?
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You do understand that the average wage in Mexico is around $5,000 a year, right? So to follow your argument, to make health care more affordable in the US we should keep the average wage suppressed. Makes sense to me.
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My dad has had a bunch of dental work done in Mexico. He had crowns done for $500 where my dentist wanted $2000.
Now admittedly it wasn't the same product -- my crown was a CERAC done same day, his was a lab-made porcelain done over more than one day.
So far he's been happy, but he's also the kind of guy that would be happy buying a used car that runs poorly simply because he got a cheap price on it.
I asked my dentist about dental work done in Mexico and he wasn't very complimentary, which I kind of expected
Confidentiality agreements? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA
And when defects are discovered, confidentiality agreements often keep the manufacturer’s identity secret, making accountability in the industry all the more difficult.
Kind of irrelevant. When you buy something, the person who sold it to you is the responsible party. If they want to keep their supplier a secret (more on that later) that's up to them but the seller is the responsible party. If they don't know who they are buying from, then they are fools and deserve whatever problems they get.
The curious bit is that I don't really see how the players in the supply chain could be kept a secret from an interested large purchaser. I run a small manufacturing company. One of the parts we make goes into a General Motors vehicle and we are a Tier 4 supplier meaning we sell to a company who sells to another company who sells to another company who sells to GM. If GM wanted to find out who made that part, I absolutely guarantee you that they could find out even if we had a confidentiality agreement in place with our customer. If the solar panel industry is unable or unwilling to do this then it means they have insufficient control of their supply chain which is a BIG problem. It means they don't really know what they are buying or how it is made.
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What if you care about the conditions under which the product was made (because you're not a soulless utility maximizing entity). Then the manufacturer's identity is important.
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How far does your supply chain morality extend? Do you look at the working conditions of the steel suppliers that sell to your supplier? How about the companies that made the machines the steel supplier uses? What about the company that makes the styrofoam coffee cups that the steelworkers use? What about the coffee they drink - is it fair trade certified?
Just a question - if you are going to extend your morality into your supply chain, where does it end?
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I've thought of this before, and think the answer is "an intensive eye to the first level of the chain". Why?
- Everyone can find out their immediate supplier
- 1 company of scrutiny is easy
- Competition here is good
- If a company knows its reason for better business, they're more likely to become minded similarly & expect the same of their suppliers.
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Far enough to capture 90% of the work that goes into the product.
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Caring about the conditions under which the product is made is another way of saying that said conditions are parameters to your utility function.
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Yes, control of the supply chain is key. You can get high-quality goods manufactured in China if you want, but not if you take a "hands off" approach. You have to do what Apple did, and oversee the operation at every level. And guess what? Once you do that, you'll find that the overhead means that manufacturing in China isn't as cheap as everyone makes it out to be. You really do get what you pay for. That's one reason why Apple is considering bringing some of its manufacturing back to the Western Hemispher
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You can be sure that a company like GE buying solar panels for power station usage would be as much in control of their supply chain as GM is with their car parts. Smaller manufacturers buying solar panels for fitting to houses or caravans, not so much. I think if you looked in detail at any of the manufacturers of car accessories sold only through independent retailers, you'd find they were similarly lacking in control of their supply chain. This isn't an industry problem, it is a problem that happens at
Rebirth! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rebirth! (Score:5, Insightful)
Japan has a healthy solar panel industry. Similar wage levels and similar living standards to the US. It is perfectly possible to complete with China in manufacturing.
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The difference is that the Japanese have high incomes coupled with a strong sense of national pride. They also generally place high value on quality. But that isn't helping them as domestic manufacturing as been suffering massively at the hands of foreign competition.
"Harsh light," get it? (Score:2)
You got talent, kid! Stick with me and I'll get you into vaudeville!!
Rising transportation costs (Score:3, Insightful)
I would never have figured Mexican labor would become cheaper than that found in China. Sure, there's an education gap between Chinese and Mexican labor, but Mexico has been successful at producing exports in a variety of industries.
Significant to what I'm seeing in that comparison is that while the "build it wherever labor is cheap" attitude has certainly been prevalent, I have to wonder if rising fuel costs will begin to whittle away at that? Several years ago, a man who ran a raw cotton storage facility told me that the cotton was grown here in Texas, shipped to China, manufactured into completed products, and shipped back to the United States. How much longer can transportation to and from across the Pacific be cost effective compared to other options?
Re:Rising transportation costs (Score:5, Interesting)
I would never have figured Mexican labor would become cheaper than that found in China. Sure, there's an education gap between Chinese and Mexican labor, but Mexico has been successful at producing exports in a variety of industries. Significant to what I'm seeing in that comparison is that while the "build it wherever labor is cheap" attitude has certainly been prevalent, I have to wonder if rising fuel costs will begin to whittle away at that? Several years ago, a man who ran a raw cotton storage facility told me that the cotton was grown here in Texas, shipped to China, manufactured into completed products, and shipped back to the United States. How much longer can transportation to and from across the Pacific be cost effective compared to other options?
Shipping costs are a major issue when a product has a low value-to-weight ratio. Almost all drywall used in the US is manufactured domestically, because these are massive, heavy sheets and only sell for $10-$20 each at retail. Shipping them across the Pacific would be cost prohibitive. (We did import some drywall from China during the 2004-2007 housing boom, and it was a disaster – much of it leaked hydrogen sulfide gas, corroding pipes and wiring in the affected houses.) Likewise, plywood is mostly made in the Western Hemisphere; it's sometimes imported from Latin America, but Chinese plywood is less common. You can get quality US-made plywood at Home Depot and it's not really that much more expensive than the foreign stuff. Again, this is because shipping costs dominate with a heavy and relatively cheap product like plywood.
Solar panels are big and bulky, so manufacturing them in China and shipping them to the US will become a worse and worse idea as prices drop.
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"build it wherever labor is cheap" is only half of the story. We have essentially moved all the low level manufacturing of the "low value" electronic components to China. So it is not just the assembly house is there, but the entire ecology surrounding it. They can essentially walk down the street to source components and get their parts in a few hours locally saving on shipping cost/time.
If you were to assemble iToys in North America, individual parts (probably 100 parts) e.g. LCD, case, chips, circuit b
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Transportation across the Pacific is scarily cheap; it's about a thousand dollars for a container that holds about twenty tons, so five cents per shirt.
This is because it's done with a big boat, and boats are amazingly efficient; five thousand containers use about a fifty-megawatt engine for about two weeks, that's twenty kilowatt-weeks (a couple of tons) of fuel to take each container to China or back. You're adding the price of about a cup of super-cheap marine fuel per shirt per direction.
Remember that
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Transportation across the Pacific is scarily cheap
It's also scarily slow.
Cheap crap from China? UNPOSSIBLE (Score:2, Informative)
Say it isn't so!
Non-story (Score:2)
These failure rates are expected (Score:2, Interesting)
Firstly, solar cells traditionally lose a large percentage of their performance after the first couple of years of use. If the small assemblies are experiencing a 50% power loss after 2 years, then achieving 50% after 7 years on a high-quality large assembly is reasonable. I'm not really sure why people are expecting solar cells to last 25 years.
Secondly, a roof is a rough place to put a solar cell. It is continuously exposed to sun (ironically), which breaks down many plastic coatings. Additionally, t
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Well, my own experience is quite a bit different with *quality* panels. I've got some I bought new 30+ years ago that are still 70% of the original spec in output.
Guess who made them? BP - that's right, the oil company that shut down solar production due to lack of profit just before they oiled up the Gulf. I paid pretty high for them back in the late '70s/early '80s, but there you have it - they've also lived through hail, wind, you name it - along with a thermal cycle per day, which is often the real k
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It depends if you are trying to anneal a proper silicon crystal (like the grandparent poster's tech from the 70's or 80's) or the cheapest and thinnest piece of silicon ever made (today's tech.)
To a certain extent, cost and reliability are opposites. If you reduce costs too low, then quality must suffer. Hence, why the original poster (me) expects unreliable cells, and the grandparent poster's experience with old but highly reliable cells. Different production techniques to reduce costs have dramaticall
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Yeah, I kinda question this article, and its focus solely on defective panels from China - we don't really have a reference point for what sort of defect rate is 'normal'.
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Firstly, solar cells traditionally lose a large percentage of their performance after the first couple of years of use. If the small assemblies are experiencing a 50% power loss after 2 years, then achieving 50% after 7 years on a high-quality large assembly is reasonable. I'm not really sure why people are expecting solar cells to last 25 years.
Because if they don't last that long then they aren't worth buying. At least not at current prices. If they got a lot cheaper then 10 years might be acceptable.
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Why is secrecy permitted in settlements? (Score:2)
because one of the parties wants it? Fuck you. The purpose of the law is to serve the greater needs of society, not the parties involved in a lawsuit. A LOT of shit goes down in terms of in and out of court settlements and wrongdoing that has the effect of frustrating researchers trying to ferret out and understand important trends and practices in society because of this secrecy. This does not serve the greater needs of society, in fact, just the fucking opposite.
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Re:secrecy way out of control (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything argued in a court of law by anyone should be open, with very few restrictions (identities of minors and victims in some criminal cases, etc). I've not yet heard any convincing arguments for keeping details of cases involving corporations from the public, at least not after some short delay in extraordinary cases (a month or so).
A great idea, but if you implemented it, companies would hack around it. Perhaps by adding another layer of lawyers invoking client privilege, or binding arbitration by a secret panel.
When companies sue each other, neither wants the results public. When a person sues a company, the company will offer them more money to stay quiet, than they can get from the original lawsuit. (once you figure the likelihood of winning & the time value of the money) A settlement keeps most of the facts away from the courts.
Stronger whistleblower protection and a better FTC would help shine light on corporate malfeasance. A law that made silence contracts non-binding would be bad for a few individuals, but good for the rest of the country.
People need privacy. Corporations, not so much.
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Of course there'd be ways around it, but the point is that US citizens shouldn't be subsidizing in any way (such as paying for the existence of courts and judges and record-keeping and lawmaking) the keeping of such information from the public.
Whistle-blowing needs to be protected by an independent (of Congress and the Executive) organization. Otherwise the Prez or a Senator just declares a particular case ineligible for protection for lame reason du jour.
Re:secrecy way out of control (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you're being sarcastic. Using the terms "court" and "law" in any discussion of Chinese business practices is automatically +5 Funny.
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