As the young people might have said thirty years ago: "Homegirl don't play."
If they were talking your E to the S to the G.
And Ms Kaminska had been in Compton rather than London.
A very deep dive from FT Alphaville:
The big news in solar manufacturing for the last decade, if not more, has been the incredible cost reductions fuelled, to a large degree, by China’s dumping of cheap modules on the international market.
The price collapse, in turn, has transformed an unviable renewable source into one that can finally compete with carbon alternatives. All good news.
But now reports are emerging that some of these cost reductions may have been generated by something as unpalatable to ESG investors as a high carbon footprint: forced labour in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In particular, a highly cited investigation by Sheffield University, has asserted that up to 45 per cent of global polysilicon comes from the area, drawing on potentially coerced labour from the ethnic minority group.
These claims have since drawn the attention of US officials, with John Kerry, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, noting last week the issue posed a problem for America’s green energy transition. Kerry also hinted the US might consider sanctions in response.
Michael Shellenberger, a writer and activist who has long argued renewables are not as clean as they seem, further noted the incident supported his view that the true cost of solar had, in large part, been disguised by these processes:....
....MUCH, MUCH MORE
It is interesting to see ideological proponents—as opposed to energy wonks—studiously ignore this problem.
Another consideration is that the costs of whole systems have not dropped nearly as fast as the cost of cells and panels.
If interested see also:
Going Green: "The battle over raw materials will decide who rules the world"
And as noted in "Why Your ESG Fund Is, And Will Be, Dominated By Technology Stocks (and what it means for your returns)":
b) despite the rapid decrease in the price of solar electricity at the panel level, when you add the cost of storage, batteries or pumped hydro or molten salt or whatever, and the price of inverters to make your leccy compatible with the grid and back-up power for when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow and connection costs and I'm sure I'm leaving a half-dozen costs out, but when you add it all up renewable electricity is still more expensive than natural gas fired turbines, despite the conversion losses when using natty.
So, as gentle reader departs for da Ville, my ADDled brain will cross solar with London, et voilà:
