Solar Slaves: China Dominates Market For Solar Panels Using Forced Uighur Labour

The smugness exhibited by the owners of solar panels is in its own special class. Pious and self-righteous, these characters are quick to pontificate about their holier than thou credentials.

Of course, plastering one’s roof with solar panels is all about saving the planet; and has nothing to do with bleeding their neighbours dry – the ones without panels who are forced to pay exorbitant electricity prices to prop up the insanely generous Feed-in-Tariffs paid to those with their roofs covered in panels.

Then there’s the cost of the Renewable Energy Certificates that get paid up front for domestic solar. In this country referred to as Small Transfer Credits – paid for by all taxpayers under the Small-Scale Renewable Energy Scheme (worth a set $40 per MWh, notional equivalent). The value of the STC reduces the cost of a typical domestic solar setup by thousands of dollars. All thanks to the Australian taxpayer.

Over the last few months their particular brand of self-righteousness has been on display, with panel owners incensed because the Energy Market Operator had the temerity to suggest that the owners of domestic solar systems should be required to pay to access the grid.

None of them seem bothered by the fact the chaotic, largely uncontrolled, output from their panels has rendered the grid increasingly unstable and causes untold headaches for the grid manager, trying to deal with the chaos created.

Now, it turns out, that all those shiny, ‘planet-saving’ solar panels have a much darker and menacing origin.

The reason that China is able to dominate the market for solar panels isn’t about superior manufacturing techniques or Confucian ideals. No, it’s about very cheap wages. So cheap in fact, apparently no money changes hands between the ‘employer’ and ‘employee’, at all.

We’ll hand over to JoNova for a few troubling facts that might just rattle the solar panel owner’s unique brand of smug.

Time to Boycott Slave-made Solar Panels?
Jo Nova Blog
Jo Nova
30 March 2021

How many Australian houses are covered in the trappings of slave labour? The EU has discovered some ethical rats inhabit their roofs.

Tim Blair spots some turbo-powered hypocrisy among those that normally lecture the rest of us on ethical consumerism.

Solar: Slavery Sourced, Green Endorsed, Tax Subsidised
Ethically-sourced food, clothing, coffee and even magical healing crystals are a big draw to concerned green types, who profess to worry deeply about the origin of anything they buy.

But the same types aren’t too fussed over the origins of their holy solar panels.

Indeed. Awkward news came out last month that “Nearly every solar power panel sold in the European Union has its origins in China’s oppressed Xinjiang region.”

Fears over China’s Muslim forced labor loom over EU solar power
Politico

Panels include components produced in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, where there are concerns about forced labour camps for Muslim minorities, including Uighurs.

The solar industry and Brussels lawmakers argue Europe’s renewable energy push should not come at a human cost amid long-standing international concern over reports China has detained 1 million people with Muslim backgrounds in camps in Xinjiang and is putting them to work.

Solar power uses slaves from every side
Eastern slaves make the panels, and western slaves pay to subsidize other people’s solar panels.

If only solar power was competitive — we could afford to pay real workers in real factories, and say no thanks to subsidies — and still get cheap electricity at the end of it.

Paul Homewood points out that the top ten solar panel makers are corporations in China, China, China, Canada, China, China, China, US, Germany and Taiwan. Even Canadian manufacturing relies on plants in Asia or Latin America and Panasonic has abandoned it’s solar factories in Malaysia and Japan. Who can compete with forced labour?

Homewood sums up the Catch-22:

Naturally, potential solar panel manufacturers in Europe would like to see punitive tariffs, but this would drastically impact on costs, destroying the idea that solar power is competitive.

My guess is that, despite protests from MEPs, little will change, and a blind eye will be turned just as with the new Russian gas pipeline to Germany. And all for what? Solar power in the EU only accounts for 1.8% of primary energy consumption.

Greenpeace says Climate Change is a Human Rights issue right up until it isn’t. It’s really an economic issue isn’t it?

More money for Greens and their friends.
Jo Nova Blog