• TWeaK
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    10 months ago

    Most of this is solar, which China has always been the main producer of.

    • Weyland@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      Always”. First proper mass-scale photovoltaic factories were from the 1980s onwards, and both the relative cost and efficiency has been at a stand still ever since the Reagan era up till the 2010s. Saying China has “always” been the main producer is a gross innacuracy and does a lot to overlook the West’s unwillingness to take on the same responsibilities. Renewable energy has always been a grift to the West, just look at how the market collapsed after 2008 due to the solar panels becoming “too cheap” and government cronies no longer getting that government subsidy money, and instead of making less profit just decided to close the factories.

      • TWeaK
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        10 months ago

        Remind me again, which part of the world are most semiconductor devices made? Certainly, for as long as I’ve been alive China has been the international manufacturing hub for that stuff.

        Your graph is a bit misleading as it does not show quantities, only relative proportions. Solar cells were developed in the US, but China is where they were mass produced.

        • Weyland@lemmygrad.ml
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          10 months ago

          Remind me again, which part of the world are most semiconductor devices made?

          Seeing as your’re going by your gut feeling as opposed to doing a quick 1 min google search:

          1. Taiwan
          2. South Korea
          3. Japan/China
          4. USA (Overtaken in 2019/20)

          for as long as I’ve been alive China has been the international manufacturing hub for that stuff

          The trend is that China will get around 25-30% of the market share in a decade. In that trend, with no changes permitted, China might need a few more decades before they produce more than 50% of the market share, so unless you have yet to be born and you’re about to come clean about us inventing time travel in the future; you’re mistaken.

          Solar cells were developed in the US, but China is where they were mass produced.

          You’re using to “were”, trying to make it sound like these periods overlapped. Americans started producing and selling the first practical solar cells more than half a century (1950s) before China even made a single one (2000s). Heck, and the first patents were half a century before that.


          If China was already dominant in the field, then what is the whole commotion about China retaking Taiwan and them ordering chip fabs from the Netherlands? Stop reading headlines.