LDK Solar Plans Wafer Capacity Growth to 1.6 Gigawatts (per year, China)

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsASMA104.htm

LDK Solar, a manufacturer of multicrystalline solar wafers, has secured additional contracts for production equipment that will enable the Company to expand its wafer production capacity to 1,600MW by the end of 2009.

Under these contracts, LDK will purchase additional directional solidification system (DSS) furnaces and wire saws for use in its manufacturing facilities in Xinyu City, China.

"By securing this equipment, we will be able to execute our plans to double our production capacity annually through 2009, in order to address the strong demand for solar wafers," stated Xiaofeng Peng, Chairman and CEO. "These agreements represent another key step towards fulfilling our vision to become the largest and lowest cost producer in the solar wafer industry."

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It just hit me like a ton of bricks. LDK. Even the banner on their website has a hint of what I'm thinking. A red white and blue American flag looking thing.

I was hoping we would have used the money we had from our previous president's era and use it to invent our new economy through renewable energy research and then production. Nope. And now I see just who IS doing that. China.

I have this sinking feeling. I suppose I am making a judgement not based on an array of facts, but just several. However, I think this is where the new research is really being done, andthe production is really happening. Not here. In China.

And that brick I feel at the back of my head is the economy we aren't going to have. We blew this opportunity. I think. Just a strong hunch.

What do we expect, spending $150 million on RE research each year? That's a lunch break for Halliburton in Iraq.

...should help ease your worried mind.

I've been watching that company for years. Even been to their front door. It's locked. They don't want visitors.

Google seeded them with a hundred million. Big deal. I'm still worried. And rightly so. Metric system? Or how about this example- 1979 at Applied Materials, a group of Chinese businessmen showed up to talk with my dad about having their own custom chip made for an electric car motor. And then there's the active stifling of the PV industry by large petro corporations that bought up and sat on vital PV designs. That was in the 80's.

I suppose being a "free" country, we'll see all kinds of companies developing ideas. But we are not putting our full steam ahead energy into it. Not like we did with the P-51 Mustang.

We need a president who will act like this is a WAR. Then we'll start making progress.


Last night I woke up with a carbon footprint analogy. I can feed someone arsenic so that they won't die. But when I give them enough, they die. It's not what we're doing, but how much of it we're doing. And now that we have identified the problem, we need to change the injestion. From arsenic to water. We can't poison ourselves on water. I know, it's dumb. That's what I think of at 3 in the morning.