We’ve seen a lot of numbers being thrown around over the past year when it comes to trade actions and enforcement.
From the steel industry’s Section 337, to a Section 201 being thrown down, right up to the 332 investigation about to get underway, there are a lot of digits but sometimes a bit less clarity on what it all means.
We thought we’d share a tiny primer on the 332 investigation of the U.S. aluminum industry’s competitiveness about to get underway before the International Trade Commission.
The Aluminum Association’s VP of Policy, Charles Johnson, shared some more details with us on how exactly the 332 investigation came about in a recent interview:
A number of AA’s member companies, including AA President Heidi Brock, are planning to testify before the ITC this Thursday morning.
A Special MetalMiner Project: Learn why China getting market economy status may just be the biggest trade issue of our time – and how it impacts the U.S. aluminum industry – in “China vs. the World.“
At the presidential debate Monday night, Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton, when asked how she would create jobs by moderator Lester Holt, said, “Here’s what we can do. We can deploy a half a billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home. We can build a new modern electric grid. That’s a lot of jobs; that’s a lot of new economic activity.”
It has often been said that the truth is the first casualty in the world of politics and the democratic party’s long-term commitment to battling the very real scourge of climate change is more dogma than policy these days wherein its adherents are committed to stopping what President Obama called “the rise of the oceans,” no matter what the cost and no matter how effective the tools it currently has really are — in this specific case, solar silicon photovoltaic panels. That’s just how so many business ventures lose sight of the bottom line and fail.
Solar Ahead of Wind?
It was actually rare to hear Clinton specify solar as a technology to “create jobs” as the usual dogma is to tout “wind and solar” with little specifics about how either of these generation technologies — which don’t require raw materials to be dug out of the ground as with the fossil fuels that currently provide most of the country’s electricity. That would mean a lot of former miners and drillers either selling or installing the estimable sum of half a billion solar panels and, once that install base is set, where do those “new jobs” go from there?
The growth in solar, in the last two decades, has been heavily dependent on the solar investment tax credit. Source: GTM Research.
If Clinton is really talking about jobs in production of crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels, she may be surprised to learn that the production end of solar has been a mature industry for decades now. There’s already a booming industry with plenty of skilled workers producing panels quickly and efficiently.
Booming Solar Production
According to GTM Research, nearly 209,000 Americans already work in solar today — more than double the number in 2010 — at more than 8,000 companies in every U.S. state. By 2020, that number is expected to double to more than 420,000 workers, but that’s a total of 211,000 jobs by the end of a potential first Clinton administration. That’s not that much job growth, all things considered. Modern factories are already able to churn out large volumes of panels quickly and efficiently. (more…)
