Slave Labor Helped Disrupt Solar Panel Prices

The left still endorses slavery but is a bit more subtle about it these days.

U.S. solar panel installations plummeted in 2022 as lingering supply chain issues hindered the industry, although forecasters anticipate a bounceback and significant growth over the next decade, according to a joint report from the industry trade group Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and research analytics firm Woods Mackenzie released Thursday.

The primary cause of the decline was a significant disruption in the solar panel supply chain caused by detentions of Chinese solar panel materials by U.S. Customs and Border Protection over concerns that the products were developed by the forced labor of Uighur muslims, according to the report. While 2022 was a “tough year” for solar, supply chain issues are expected to be resolved in 2023, leading to a 41% surge in installations, Michelle Davis, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report, said in a press release Thursday.

“Companies are aggressively shifting their supply chains, helping to ensure that solar installed in the U.S. is ethically sourced and has no connection to forced labor,” SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said in the press release. “While the solar and storage industry acts swiftly on supply chains and building a stronger domestic manufacturing base, ongoing threats of steep tariffs are holding back the potential of the historic Inflation Reduction Act”

Slave labor artificially deflates the prices of products and services but product quality suffers too. China, on the other hand. dominates the rare earth metals market and uses slave labor (including children) to mine and even manufacture products such as solar panels that environmentalist groups are complicit in aiding. The U.S. crackdown on Chinese solar panels is merely window dressing since the American left has lots of slave labor migrating through the southern and even northern U.S. borders.

PHOTO CREDIT: Two children workers at a cobalt mine in the DRC. Source unknown.