Sun, Silicon, and Xinjiang

This week, we talk solar power—a long overdue topic on Decouple. In the past, guests have often been critical of the value of renewables on grids without extensive storage, and of the quality of jobs that politicians often claim when justifying renewables programs. Today, however, we drop preconceptions and get to the nuts and bolts. My guest is Seaver Wang, director of the Climate and Energy Research Program at The Breakthrough Institute. Despite is imperfections, the solar power has a remarkable story, from its technological origins, to its dramatic cost reductions in the last decade, to the sheer scale of new capacity being added in places like China. We cover these topics and more in this episode: the Solar Masterclass.

Watch now on YouTube.

We talk about

• Historical roots and evolution of solar technology

• Impact of the German Energiewende and feed-in tariffs

• China's rise to dominance in solar manufacturing

• Energy-intensive production processes of polysilicon

• Controversy over Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang

• Solar’s lifecycle emissions and environmental impacts

• Dramatic cost reductions and economies of scale

• Limitations and misconceptions in distributed solar

• Future integration with battery storage

• Role of geopolitical and ethical issues in solar supply chains