Aff: Abolish Anti-Dumping Solar Tariffs

David Hansen
Mile High 2015

Synopsis: Ad I is energy wars. Ad 2 is domestic solar.

Advantage I: China
Uniqueness – Trade War Coming Now

1. Current US tariffs threaten to start a clean energy trade war.

- In 2012 the U.S. Commerce Department set anti-dumping duties ranging from 18.32 percent to 249.96
percent on solar-energy cells imported from China.

- This tariff is comparable to Smoot-Hawley, a tariff passed in 1930 which was meant to protect US
agriculture using similar tactics to current anti-dumping tariffs on solar panels. However, economists like
Ben Bernanke point out that Smoot Hawley led to a 50% in US exports because of trade retaliation and
sparked the Great Depression.

- Europe, India and China are all competing to be the largest solar manufacturers. Italy, Greece and Spain
see solar as their way of revitalizing their economies. India and China see solar as an opportunity to enter
into renewables to guarantee their future economic growth.

2. Strategic value of renewables make this conflict the most likely to escalate
- Li Chunding, research assistant at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, "The renewable energy industry is also the driving engine and the key for
China's economic restructuring and industrial upgrading. Therefore, in response to trade frictions started
by the United States, we should take all kinds of measures to ease and settle disputes and reduce our
losses."

- Recent advancement in solar batteries mean that solar is the most promising renewable. Tobias
Rothacher, renewable energies expert at Germany Trade & Invest states that new battery technology has
made solar twice as efficient as it was in 2012.

Impacts
1. Trade war between US/China escalates
- Economic conflict breeds military conflict. China sees its sovereignty as dependent on its ability to
grow. Arguments about current trade between the US and China preventing war don’t matter, China’s
perceived ability to grow does.

- Both the US and China have been developing technologies to combat the others’ military. China is
focusing on developing more advanced hacking and satellite utilities while the US pursues naval and air
superiority.
- An empirical study by Goldsmith and Brauer in 2010 shows that if a country expects future trade
decline, especially for crucial resources (solar in this case), states will use force to gain those resources.
- Blomberg and Hess in 2002 found a correlation between internal conflict and external conflict. Meaning
as the US and China continue to battle internally about trade, the probability of military conflict increases.

- Zhao Jinping, vice director of the Foreign Economic Department of the Development Research Center
states that a trade war between the US and China would cause more economic damage than the financial
crisis and warns that because of the size of the two economies, every country would be drawn into
economic turmoil that would trigger protectionist policies that mirror the 1930’s.

2. The conflict goes nuclear, risks extinction

- During a global conflict, China would expand into South East Asia as well as into Japan. This would
create an international standoff where the US would be forced to use nuclear weapons to uphold security
guarantees with Japan.

- Nuclear countries near China (India, Pakistan) would use nuclear weapons as a last ditch effort to
protect their borders from the massive Chinese military, triggering Chinese nuclear retaliation.

- A single nuclear weapon has the ability to kill millions of people. Triggering multiple nuclear weapons
on multiple fronts could cause nuclear winter, leading to extinction.

Solvency
1. Ending the tariff allows diffusion of solar energy
- Cheap, available solar power would be followed by an increase in demand for solar energy. This
demand does two things: first, it increases the development budgets for solar energy and second it
diffuses trade tensions between the US and China.

2. Ending the tariff is seen as a gesture of good will

- Ending the tariff is a shift in US policy towards China. Plan recognizes China as a nation to fairly trade
with. This appeases China’s need to grow in the future because relations with the US are seen as
sustainable, the quelling Chinese expansionism and protectionism.

3. Ending the tariff causes public discourse about the dangers of protectionism
- The public and policy makers are able to realize protectionism economic policies are a mistake. This
prevents things like the tariff from being passed in the future.

Ad II: Domestic Solar

Uniqueness – The tariff prevents widespread domestic adoption of solar energy
1. The tariff prevents solar from becoming cost effective
- Garvin Jabusch, co-manager of the Green Alpha Next Economy Index, argues that the tariff has led to
price inflation on domestic solar panels. Because Chinese panels are so expensive, US manufacturers
charge more. The problem isn’t that China has been dumping, it’s that the US hasn’t been competitive.

2. The world won’t stop for US solar. Commented [1]: How does this argument function with
the first advantage?
- The tariff does little to slow the adoption of solar energy abroad, just in the US. This means that as
everyone else gets more competitive and develops better technology, we fall behind. This prevents US
solar industries from ever achieving grid parity.

3. The tariff will devastate domestic solar.

- James Pierobon, the Chief Energy Writer at the Houston Chronicle states that the price increase because
of the tariff would cause a net 50,000 job decrease over the next three years. 52% in installation, 18% in
sales and distribution and the rest in manufacturing. Retaliatory tariffs would risk 11,000 additional solar
jobs.

4. Heatwave blackouts are coming now.

- 2015 could be the hottest summer on record. A record El Nino is expected, which means that the surface
of the ocean could be up to a degree (Celsius) warmer than in previous years.

- A 2012 EPA report on blackouts showed that heatwave blackouts have tripled in the US over the past
several years due to rising temperatures.

Impacts
1. Blackouts cause disease
- A report from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy states that critical health
infrastructure collapses without power and that most pandemic planning does not account for the loss of
electricity. Factors like safe refrigeration and cooking become dangerous without sustainable power.

- Clean drinking, sewage disposal all require electricity and are responsible for the largest drops in disease
mortality over the past century.

2. Disease leads to superbugs, extinction Commented [2]: Seems a better second impact to
- Michael Gregor, the Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society disease instead of jumping to super bugs would be
terroist grid system attacks...
published a warning stating that but there are catastrophes ahead. We live in evolutionary competition
with microbes—bacteria and viruses. There is no guarantee that we will be the survivors… So far our
immune systems have largely retained the upper hand, but the fear is that given the current rate of disease
emergence, the human race is losing the race.

- Black outs are usually accompanied by riots and mass gatherings in cities. Without our sanitation
infrastructure, these become a pools for disease to spread and gather in.

Solvency
1. The tariff allows grid parity.
- Cheap solar energy means that solar power may become less expensive per kilowatt hour than fossil
fuels. Germany is nearly reaching that point now.

- People will only buy solar if it’s cheap enough.

2. Natural Gas can’t solve

- Price spikes with natural gas destroy the demand and keep investors from wanting to add significant grid
capabilities for NG.

- Because of the long supply chain for natural gas, cheap prices take a long time for there to be an
increase in production, allowing steep demand-side increases in price, but not supply side decreases in
price.

3. Policy advocacy is key to solve.

- Frank Laird, Professor in the School of International Studies at Denver, “This combination of normative
and technical ideas can influence policy because it can present decision makers with consensual
interpretations of uncertain events and provide legitimation to policy decisions”

- A policy endorsement of solar expansion increases consumer confidence in solar, meaning that more
people will be willing to install solar panels in their homes. It also means large scale production of solar
energy becomes acceptable.

4. Solar is uniquely key to solve heatwave blackouts

- It’s simple meteorology: the hottest days are also the sunniest. Meaning that as the demand for power
increases, so does the supply of solar power.