US slaps 'America First' tariffs on washing machines and solar panels

 

The US has approved controversial tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels.

The move is in line with President Donald Trump's "America First" trade policy, which aims to protect local manufacturers from foreign competition.

A spokesman said the administration would "always defend American workers, farmers, ranchers and businessmen".

But China and South Korea, whose manufacturers will be most heavily affected, criticised the move.

US officials said more trade enforcement actions would follow.

Image captionDonald Trump: 'America first, America first'

Mr Trump has talked about taking the action ever since coming to office. In his inauguration speech a year ago he promised to protect US borders from other countries "making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs".

The actions are being seen as the president's most significant trade moves since his decision to pull the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal (TPP) and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

Why have the tariffs been imposed?

The tougher policy was approved by President Trump after the US International Trade Commission (ITC) found local manufacturers were being hurt by cheaper imports.

Manufacturing companies - Whirlpool, a US-based maker of washing machines, and the solar firms Suniva and Solar World Americas - had complained to the ITC and it found in their favour.

The tariffs set on solar panels were lower than domestic US producers had hoped for, but the duties on washing machines and parts were steeper than expected - adding as much as 50% in some cases , according to US documents.

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How will the tariffs work?

The first 1.2 million imported large residential washing machines in the first year will have a 20% tariff imposed on them, while there will be a 50% tariff on machines above that number.

By the third year, these will drop to 16% and 40% respectively.

Figures suggest that in 2010, 1.6 million washing machines were imported to the US .

Meanwhile, the tariff increase on imported solar cells and modules in the first year will be 30%, falling to 15% by the fourth year, although 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of imported cells - enough for about 11.5 million panels - will be allowed in tariff-free annually.

The ITC said that China had been selling "artificially low-priced" solar components in the US, assisted by state subsidies.

What does it mean for the solar industry?

Taylor Kate Brown, BBC News, Washington

The Trump administration has imposed these tariffs as part of a larger promise to protect American manufacturing - including the solar industry firms that brought the original complaint to the trade commission. But what the "solar industry" means in this context is complicated.

The tariffs were opposed by America's largest solar industry group - the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). SEIA said Suniva and Solarworld had used the complaint to cover for bad business practices - and pointed out the two companies are actually foreign-owned even though the produce panels in the US.

SEIA's position was also driven by the fact the group represents thousands of solar installers - an industry that's seen explosive growth, driven in part because of the dropping cost of panels. Firms that specialise in larger solar "farms" that sell their energy to US utilities are particularly worried about the decision, as they compete directly with coal, natural gas and wind producers.

Ironically, the decision could mean more competition for Suniva and Solarworld, asseveral foreign firms may be interested in moving production to the US .

What has the reaction been?

US appliance maker Whirlpool, which for years has sought protection against cheaper imports from South Korea and Mexico, welcomed the move.

Image captionHow Sharon turned her life around

" This announcement caps nearly a decade of litigation and will result in new manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee ," chairman Jeff Fettig said in a statement.

Shares in Whirlpool rose 2.5% on the news, and it immediately announced it would employ 200 more people. Shares in US solar panel manufacturers also went up.

Environmentalists argue that making solar panels more expensive risks holding back the development of renewable energy in the country.

China and South Korea have reacted angrily to the news.

South Korea said it would complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO), calling the tariffs "excessive" and "regrettable". Its manufacturers, including Samsung and LG, compete in the washing machine market with US firms such as Whirlpool.

Samsung called the tariffs "a tax on every consumer who wants to buy a washing machine".

Meanwhile China, the world's biggest solar panel manufacturer, said the move would further damage the global trade environment.

China is the US's biggest trading partner and government spokesman Wang Hejun said that Beijing expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the plans.

He warned that "together with other WTO members, China will resolutely defend its legitimate interests" adding that the plans "not only aroused the concern of many trading partners but was also strongly opposed by many local governments and downstream enterprises in the US".

Scientists develop the first solar fuels reactor that works at night

Researchers have developed the world’s first solarfuels reactor that is able to function at night. Called CONTISOL, the solar fuels reactor is capable of producing fuel such as hydrogen without the intensive greenhouse gas emissions caused by creating the fuel from burning natural gas. CONTISOL is able to run at all hours of the day because it relies on concentrated solar power (CSP), which allows for thermal energy storage. Notably, the reactor uses air, which is abundant, accessible, and non-corrosive, in order to store and transfer heat within the device. “It can pull air in just out of the atmosphere and then runs it through the heat exchanger to store the heat,” explained study lead author Justin Lapp, “and then it can vent that air out once it is cool.”

In a traditional solar fuels reactor, the process depends upon the solar thermal heat provided by the sun. When the sun disappears at night, so too does its energy. Scientists at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed their all-hours solar fuels reactor by combining two previously developed systems. “So the main idea of CONTISOL was to build two reactors together,” said Lapp. “One where sunlight is directly doing chemical processing; the other side for storing energy. In the chemical channels, the high temperatures of the material drives the chemical reaction and you get a change from reactants to products within those channels.” This balancing act provides CONTISOL with stable temperatures and an efficient heat source for powering reactions that create fuels like hydrogen.

So far, the team has only developed a small-scaleprototype that is capable of operating at 850 degrees Celsius with an energy output of 5kW. “This scale is a scientific prototype simply for us to understand how to control it. It wouldn’t be commercialized at 5 kW,” said Lapp. “Commercially, 1-5 MW would be about the smallest for industrial-scale reactors, and they could scale to 100 MW or even larger.” Though still in its early stages, a full-scale CONTISOL system would allow for low-impact access to clean hydrogen fuel when fully developed and deployed.

Se abre primera carretera pública de paneles solares en Normandía, Francia

Francia acaba de abrir lo que, según afirma, es la primera carretera pública de paneles solares en el mundo, dijeron el jueves funcionarios.
El Ministerio de Medio Ambiente francés anunció la inauguración de la nueva carretera "sin precedentes" el jueves, que está cubierta por paneles solares y se extiende por más de media milla en la ciudad de Tourouvre-au-Perche en Normandía, Francia.
El camino, llamado Wattway, fue inaugurado oficialmente el jueves por la ministra francesa de Ecología, Ségolène Royal, y el alcalde Guy Monhée, según un comunicado del Ministerio del Medio Ambiente.
El tramo de la carretera está cubierto de paneles fotovoltaicos, que transforman la energía solar en electricidad.
"Esta nueva tecnología no tiene precedentes", dijo el ministerio en su declaración.
Las autoridades francesas esperan que la carretera genere electricidad suficiente para alimentar las farolas en la pequeña ciudad de aproximadamente 3.400 residentes.
El programa está diseñado para evaluar a gran escala el comportamiento de la carretera solar bajo el tráfico promedio de automóviles y camiones, de acuerdo con el comunicado del ministerio.
El camino será utilizado por aproximadamente 2,000 automovilistas por día durante su período de prueba de dos años, según The Guardian.
Royal, el ministro de Ecología, dijo a principios de este año que quiere pavimentar 1000 kilómetros (621 millas) de carretera con paneles solares en los próximos cinco años.

World's first solar train will begin service soon in Byron Bay, Australia

The train, which features restored vintage carriages with flexible solar panels on their roofs, will travel between its solar-charging train station and a resort property in Byron Bay.

The Byron Bay Railroad Company is putting a disused track to work again with a restored "derelict heritage train" that has been converted to be 100% solar powered. The not-for-profit company refurbished a 3-kilometer stretch of tracks, as well as a bridge, between the town of Byron Bay, where a 30kW solar array, battery storage system, and charging station has also been installed, and the nearby Elements of Byron Bay resort.

The solar train features a 6.5kW solar array comprised of flexible solar panels on the roofs of the carriages, which can together carry up to 100 passengers at a time. The rooftop solar array will feed into the onboard 77kWh battery, which also gets partially charged between trips by the station's solar array. According to RenewEconomy, the battery is about the same capacity as that in a Tesla Model S, but the solar train only requires about 4kWh to travel each leg of the trip, so there is plenty of juice for it to make "12-15 runs off a single charge," and the regenerative braking feature will allow the train to recoup "around 25% of the spent energy each time the brakes are applied."

The train was originally intended to be put into service as a diesel unit, but after "a fair bit of community resistance" to the idea of having a diesel train running there, the company explored the option of using an electric drive system coupled with a solar charging station, and found it to be a feasible alternative. The original carriages, which were built in 1949 at Chullora Railway Workshops in Sydney using lightweight aluminum aircraft technology (the facility was used from 1942-1945 to build bombers) were restored by Lithgow Railway Workshop.

All of the train's systems, including traction power, lighting, control circuits, and air compressors, are powered by solar (via the battery), which the company believes qualifies it "as a world first." The Byron Bay solar train also includes one of the original two diesel engines as an emergency backup in the event of a fault in the electric drive system. More information about the service, which is set to begin December 16th, is available at the website.

And if you needed another reason to go to Byron Bay other than just to ride a solar train, remember that it's also the most spiritual place on Earth.