You are correct. Americans get the politicians and the society that we deserve. It's pretty shitty.

The numbers don't support your conjecture! The over capcity is not due to lack of demand, its do to crazy production capacity increases in China. The solar energy industry hasn't stopped growing. It may slow in the US (it hasn't yet!) due to cheap natural gas, but most of the world doesn't have that luxury (or our prices!). Furthermore, natural gas is the perfect companion to solar energy It's cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than other fossil fuels. And a huge installed natural gas base is perfect for a large solar grid: the gas does load following on solar and base load. Economical and clean! Everyone is happy. :) And natural gas infrastructure is the perfect segway into a syn-gas economy ... artificial natural gas from solar or biomass.

There are no direct subsidies. Only provincial tax and energy breaks that look identical to what all municipalities (including Ca, Az, Co, Ma) do to entice development. China Development Bank has given loan-guarantees and project financing to many players ... with terms that look terrible in comparison to what our Dept. of Energy offered First Solar, Solandra, etc. What no one wants to admit is that most of the financing for this Chinese push came from private markets in US and HK. AKA Capitalism, is a destructive bitch!

False equivalency, there absolutely is no comparison. The evidence is in the direction of the county, which has been shifting right ever since LBJ. The idiot of the right wing is a plurality or maybe even a majority of the party. A group that routinely denies the scientific method in favor of super natural explanations and are extremely well represented in government. I'd like to see any evidence that the radical (science denying ) left has similar influence in their party or representation in government. I'd be looking for anti-wifi, anti-vaccine, or anti-GMO to dominate the debate (on the scale of AGW, evolution) and have 50-200 member congressional delegation of self-avowed socialists calling for an end to capitalism. Instead I see a few fringe moderate-socialists, a large majority of capitalist/fiscally conservative social liberals, and republican-democrats. Here's BHO, "the radical leftist:" http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012 . Of course, I'm open to evidence that political compass is communist propaganda and in fact there is true "leftist" representation in government and the dramatic 40 yr shift toward the right wing is a hallucination.

I doubt there are "a lot" (whatever that means) of any non-technical group that could even articulate acceptable scientific procedure. I am open to evidence supporting your claim before I write it off as a self-selection bias among a small, technically minded libertarian minority.

haha, that guy needs to settle down a bit!

If solar energy isn't thriving, what is? The solar industry has blown away expectations for several years running... Even the massive over capacity and German/Italian incentive cuts haven't slowed it down. In fact, we're in the midst of a shift from western-RPS based demand to BRIC/developing country demand. That ought to tell you something about the cost of solar energy. The annualized growth is ~30%-40%. The global solar industry is growing at 10-15X the US economy... The fastest growing industry of its size ($50b + ) on earth. The US was ~7% of the 28GW global installs last year, growing 109% from 2010. Any hiccup with fracking (e.g. regulations, LNG exports, etc) and solar takes the lead everywhere. Module + BOS costs are at grid parity. Installation costs still tip the scales, but they will die as the industry matures (really? We're paying electricians 400-600% the cost of the equipment to mount on residential roofs? absurd...I could very successfully argue at this point that these guys are just eating all the incentives, at least in the US) and large firms dominate installation/leasing or utility scale arrays dominate. IMO, there will be utility scale PV projects installed at $2/Wp by 2013, neglecting incentives. Calculate LCOE on that over 30 yr... The big firms are still not even completely vertically integrated yet, but they will be soon... from polysilicon to project.. From modules they can grab 1 cent of profit off each vertical and they gross $60 million per GW (which is what they are doing now, and basically breaking even or slightly losing money due to OPX and debt payments) or they can do the project and grab $280 million per GW at $ 3 installs or $180 million per GW at $2 installs at a margin of 7 - 9 %. Or heck, they pay just start installing plants themselves. Not to mention China Development Bank has something like 40 billion in project financing available, which few firms have used at all...

Due to historically low natural gas is cheaper than coal right now. So is solar in the right climate :)

Can you show me your evidence of dumping or "excessive subsidies"? I see net gross margins on Suntech, Trina, Yingli, Canadian solar, JA Solar, China Sun, Jinko Solar and the dozen other companies I follow for Q2,Q3, and Q4. Meanwhile I see older German, American, Chinese, and Taiwanese liquidating products as part of bankruptcy because none of the 'old firms' can compete with the new cost structures established by these firms... Isn't this what is suppose to happen?

According to documents filed with the SEC, the publicly traded Chinese firms I follow (~70% of production) have net gross margins for the entire period in question. Granted, they are still running at operating losses for a myriad of other reasons..So either these firms are fraudulent (a pretty serious allegation, far worse than dumping or this is all protectionist garbage) Yet, the majority of opinions on this forum are based on this easily falsifiable U.S. financial media reporting. The evidence of positive gross margins is publicly available via the SEC... Where is the critical thinking here people? Isn't the burden of proof on those who make the accusations? Instead, the firms behind these allegations remain anonymous and fail to provide any evidence. I'd also like to see evidence that Chinese subsides are larger than U.S. subsidies... The big public firm behind this, SolarWorld, is well connected politically and couldn't compete with China even with a 50% tariff ...

What a troll !

It is very unfortunate that these dumping and subsidy accusations have taken ground on slashdot and in general. So many people swallow these accusations as fact simply because they are reported allowing the entire anti-China hysteria to continue to grow. These tariffs are a only temporary injustice compared to the totally corrupt "dumping" ruling that will come. Where is the proof of any of this? The firms singled out have all their financials available and they all have positive gross margins. Why is a Chinese subsidy anti-competitive while American subsidies are not? How can people so easily swallow this nonsense?

There are a lot of valid complaints against the Chinese solar industry, but these are not it. This is crony capitalism by politically well-connected minority of mostly anonymous US/German firms. That is all. Chinese companies make cheap solar panels totally above the board, "dumping" is due to small Chinese firms going BANKRUPT by new and successful PV firms. There are Chinese causalities to this revolution too! a.k.a. Destructive capitalism. You can also buy "dumped" Evergreen Solar (a bankrupt US solar firm) at below industry ASP. Where's the outrage? The big Chinese players (the ones specifically, by name targeted with these tarrifs) are taking over and putting American and German firms out of business via well executed competitive capitalism. They spent the last 5 years building modern high-quality poly silicon plants that produce poly at 20$kg, way cheaper existing than US and NORWAY. Their poly plants sit right next to their wafer, cell, and module facilities, which all use the fanciest, newest US and German manufacturing equipment. The Chinese firms are aggressively pursuing vertical strategies, executing efficiency improvements throughout the entire product chain, and reducing cost via a hugely competitive free market, recycling the nasties instead of dumping them because its cheaper! The strongest firms are manufacturing and selling modules at under a dollar at 7-14% gross margin. AKA *not* dumping. They are all operating on a loss due to fast declining module ASPS, awesome competition, and reletively high OPEX due to expansion, R&D, and debt. We know this because these companies are listed on American exchanges where they comply with GAAP accounting standards, file this info in their quarterly 10K and have American firms auditing them. The basis of these dumping and subsidy accusations are so obviously fradulent, it is really insulting. China is executing a brilliant strategy, mostly above the board, and now the the US politburo is attempting to penalize them. It won't work, we'll just fall further behind.

China Development Bank has given out loan guarantees much like the US Department of Energy (e.g Solandra, First Solar). Ironically, the Chinese firms have barely even tapped this credit. They have mostly been successful raising money on the securities and bond markets in the US and Hong Kong, aka private investors. Chinese provinces have given out awesome tax and energy rebates to manufacturers just like US States (e.g.MA,CA,CO). Where's the beef? The whole anti-Chinese bandwagon is utterly disgusting. It so clearly displays the hypocrisy behind the agendas that drive capitalism and globalization that I can barely stomach it.... It's all a complete farce.

On the other hand, PV is clearly part of a massive strategy for Chinese energy independence. In fact, they have probably passed the tipping point. They are mostly through the development of a several hundred GW/yr PV industry. They will continue grow their production on the backs of western countries mandates and private financing from western markets. Brilliant! the west is paying China to develop what will be the most cost effective, ubiquitous and potentially largest industry on earth. We Americans see this well-executed strategy and our response is to protect a minor portion of our own solar industry (at the expense of our solar equipment exporters, which fyi give us the NET solar exports, and downstream solar firms). This is about the most incompetent response I could possibly imagine. We are losers.

Pardonn my ignorance.