Biden Signs Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Into Law
^Satellite view of mines and coal power plants in Xinjiang province, China.
July 2, 2022 - Washington DC - In some kind of dystopian nightmare out of a science fiction story, on the other side of the planet away from our North American bubble, 1 million Uyghur ethnic group people are slaving away to mine sand and refine it into polysilicon wafers in high-energy-use factories for the global photovoltaic solar panel industry--half of all polysilicon comes from this Gobi Desert forced labor factory region in eastern China, powered by coal plants spewing out tons of CO2 emissions without regulation. Bloomberg reporters were denied access in 2021, see link below.
While environmental groups proclaim they are fighting for social justice, and the renewable enrgy industry claims solar is cheaper than ever, problems arise as other parts of the world are discovered to use totalitarian methods to reap profits while exploiting ethnic groups using forced labor and genocide. This is not "green" energy, and must be stopped.
This investigative journalism also reveals the high energy cost needed to manufacture high-grade polysilicon for solar panels--fossil fuel is burned without regulation to supply energy to these factories.
Basin and Range Watch supports rooftop solar and solar panels on parking lot canopies, on disturbed lands, and not on ecosystems. We absolutely do not support solar panel manufacture by forced labor and genocide of the Uyghur people. We hope other avenues of solar supply chains can pay workers a fair living wage.
Good news on stopping the US import of solar panels from China with polysilicon produced by Uyghur slave-labor, as Congress agrees and President Biden signs the bipartisan bill into law preventing the import of solar panels from certain Chinese companies that use polysilicon components from these forced labor factories in Xinjiang province:
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Goes into Effect | Center for Strategic and International Studies - June 27, 2022
https://www.csis.org/analysis/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-goes-effect
If other countries don't also halt import of these solar supplies, then the US solar companies should be fine in their supply chains. But if other countries start cracking down on importing slave-made solar compments, then we beleive there could be a shortage of solar panels in the US.
In Broad Daylight Uyghur Forced Labour in the Solar Supply Chain | Sheffield Hallam University
Study the Bloomberg 2021 article with detailed background on this horrible slave labor problem, with quote from Dr. Dustin Mulvaney, a Basin and Range Watch advisor:
Bloomberg: China’s Xinjiang Solar Factories Haunted by Labor Abuse Claims
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-xinjiang-solar/
