After growing 19 percent in 2006 and 62 percent in 2007, world solar photovoltaic (PV) market installations exploded by 110 percent last year to a staggering 5.95 GW, according to Solarbuzz’s Annual Report, Marketbuzz 2009:
Europe accounted for 82% of world demand in 2008. Spain’s 285% growth pushed Germany into second place in the market ranking, while the US advanced to [a very distant] number three. Rapid growth in Korea allowed it to become the fourth largest market, closely followed by Italy and Japan.
And who is the leading producer of PV cells?
China and Taiwan continued to increase their share of global solar cell production, rising to 44% in 2008 from 35% in 2007.
Yes, the United States created the solar cell industry and literally launched it into space 50 years ago. And, yes, solar PV is going to be one of the largest job-creating industries of the century, projected to grow “from a $20 billion industry in 2007 to $74 billion by 2017.”
And, yes, today America has precisely zero of the top 10 PV plants (down from one last year), with our market share having plummeted in the past decade, as the figure below makes all too painfully clear:
But don’t get all friggin’ sentimental on me. Think of the few billion dollars U.S. taxpayers saved because:
- President Reagan gutted Jimmy Carter’s renewable energy program (see “Who got us in this energy mess? Start with Ronald Reagan“).
- Newt Gingrich blocked President Clinton’s effort to boost funding for solar PV research and deployment programs.
- Conservatives in general like John McCain and George Bush Judd Gregg opposed the kind of funding and incentives that countries like Japan and Germany embraced (see “The greenwasher from Arizona has a record as dirty as the denier from Oklahoma” and “Is a possible 60th Senate seat worth a not-very-green GOP Commerce Secretary?“).
The fundamental tenets of conservative ideology say that if countries like China and Taiwan and Spain make most of the PV cells, it must be because they have an inherent “comparative” advantage over us. You gotta start reading your Ricardo, people.
Any card-carrying conservative knows that if other countries manage to get millions of their workers’ hands dirty actually making stuff, it’s only because they are better at it. We’re still the brainiacs who invent the technologies first and then wisely save a few pennies of the taxpayer dollars not promoting American technologies into billion-dollar American industries. We’ve still got all those Internet-related jobs, and it’s not like the government had anything to do with that.
So please, all you progressives and enviros out there, stop your whining. The plan is unfolding as it should, indeed as it must. Do not argue with the invisible hand. People will think you’re crazy.
Sure those thin films look cool. They seem like something that could generate a lot of jobs for a high-tech, high wage economy.
More seriously, it will be interesting to see whether significant incentives and real requirements for renewable energy at a national level can restore some semblance of U.S. leadership.
Although growth is sure to slow this year, it does seem like PV is make it a real race with the other solar energy, Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload.
Hat tip SET Energy.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
