China manufactures that stuff with the goal of selling it to us. Not buying the China FUD at all.
In the event of an invasion USA would be doing a proxy war with China the same way we are with Russia. We’d be giving Taiwan weapons to prevent air and naval dominance and their military would likely suffer horribly before they could even get a foothold on the island.
There’s no reason to think this would lead to nuclear escalation and China’s nuclear threat is way less potent than Russia’s, China’s economic threat is way more potent but they also have much more to lose than Russia.
80% of all new generation capacity globally is renewables. (China also dominant in wind. But not quite to the same extent)
It would really be a boon for the rest of the world if China refuses to supply panels. It’s not like the capacity to manufacture them is hard to build up the way it is for semiconductors nor is it a product that lacks alternatives, semiconductors are almost unique in that sense
Why do you think it would be harder to build semiconductors capacity than solar panels?
Because the machines to make them take a really long time to create and the machines to make those machines. At least this is what I’ve read in the past. I have no personal expert knowledge in this matter though
Idk overall but you don’t need extreme uv lithography to make solar panels.
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Yeah. Its. It’s not the top. But the main point I was trying to make was that there is a ton of stuff that china manufactures that we need and couldnt do without.
Like if chips were 1. Then you have numbers 2 through to 5000 that arent enough on their own but in aggregate would have the same effect.
Regarding the importance of solar. Unless you follow energy, many people havent quite realised how dominant solar and wind have become in the last couple of years.
Solar and wind are MUCH cheaper than everything else, and are going to keep getting cheaper. All plans for energy systems over the next decade are built around this fact.
Sure any direct economic conflict with China involves like 50% inflation across the board, maybe more. It is likely the voters don’t have the stomach for it, but it is similarly painful to China not even including the military losses
Because the average chip fab takes a few billion dollars to build and uses the most advanced technology the human race has conceived.
Sure, it’s bad for the US if China stops selling clothes and tires and frying pans and car parts, but it’s 10x worse for China, immediate great depression.
Biden admin seems to be making a legit push to spin up a domestic chip foundry. I think the military is a big driving force behind this.
Sounds like something the US and europe would be relatively good at.
The cost structure of the chip industry is a reason why it’s a natural monopoly dominated by one company, that doesnt necessarily mean that it couldnt be recreated.
Building solar panels at the scale and cost that china does is a different type of problem entirely, and may be “harder” to solve for the US/Europe.
I use harder in quotes to emphasize that being technically difficult is only one dimension.
Making the invasion a LOT less likely by sending a few bucks to Ukraine is a no brainer
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Pocket change compared with our stupid defense budget, and far more ethical and effective
it’s not comparable. tsmc dominance built over roughly 3x longer timeframe, and developed tech that’s not readily built anywhere else. that’s not how it is in solar and batteries. mid term materials aren’t figured out like that, and china isn’t doing something that is almost impossible to catch up to yet. plus it’s responsible for less of new renewables as europe went after wind.
Buit that would take years. In the meantime every industry that is directly or indirectly dependent on semiconductors is crippled and isn‘t that basically all of them?
The EU has a chips initiative as well: European Chips Act | Shaping Europe’s digital future.
But yeah, gonna take a while…
I agree. What I’m trying to say is that so much of the supply chain on another 1000 things are equally dependent on china. The problem exists today. It may get a little worse if china takes over Taiwan.