...Experts interviewed by IBT estimate it takes about nine years for an imported solar panel installed on a US roof to recover the greenhouse gas emissions involved in manufacturing and transporting it....
...So none of the solutions are perfect—trade policy rarely is. But I think this one points to a larger economic trend: localization.
Tariffs or not, solar-panel manufacturing will probably return to the US anyway. Trade sanctions will just speed it up by a few years. Cheap Asian labor no longer has the competitive advantage it used to have.
Photo: Getty Images
Factory robots don’t care where you put them. They cost about the same and work equally hard on either side of the Pacific.
As automation continues, I think we’ll see manufacturing of all kinds move closer to the customer. Speed is replacing scale as the differentiator.
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