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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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"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.
But why acknowledge the success of China when I can just dismiss it out of hand as not a big deal?!!
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.
Seeing as your're going by your gut feeling as opposed to doing a quick 1 min google search:
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.
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.
I thought Taiwan was a part of China?