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China’s troubled Xinjiang region produces nearly half the world’s polysilicon, a key ingredient in solar panels.
— Bloomberg Originals (@bbgoriginals) April 18, 2021
The problem is, no one really knows what goes on inside their factories. Bloomberg’s @Colum_M and @JDMayger traveled to Xinjiang to find out https://t.co/VFJNprxlf8 pic.twitter.com/wxLynfZcqK
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Essential investigation. Four factories in Xinjiang produce about half of the world’s supply of polysilicon, which is a key component of solar panels.
— Robinson Meyer (@robinsonmeyer) April 13, 2021
This is where renewable supply chains, global decarbonization, and the Chinese domestic regime collide: https://t.co/dbtkTqAeDf
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2/ China's state secrecy cloaks the raw material for a green boom that researchers at BloombergNEF project will include a nearly tenfold increase in solar capacity over the next three decades. pic.twitter.com/1IjZEmycJq
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
4/ Three owners of Xinjiang's polysilicon refineries have been linked to a state-run employment program that, according to some foreign governments and academics, can amount to forced labor.
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
6/ For the next three days, agents followed our reporters everywhere, obstructing all attempts to speak to locals and deleting photos.
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
The veil over Xinjiang has made the search for answers about the links between China's labor program and its solar industry difficult.
8/ The owner of one polysilicon factory, GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd., said in a 2019 report that it had accepted 121 poor minority workers from the Uyghur heartland in southern Xinjiang. pic.twitter.com/YZU81NTjoI
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
10/ Some of the Western nations leading the transition to cleaner energy have also accused the Chinese government of committing genocide in Xinjiang.
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
12/ But academics and activists identify the practice as part of a long history of using coercive state structures to oppress China's Muslims, strip them of their culture, and separate them from their families.
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
14/ Consumers can't track the provenance of their panels, since raw materials from multiple factories mix along the solar supply chain.
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
"Any silicon-based solar panel may have at least a small amount of Xinjiang silicon," says Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at BNEF. pic.twitter.com/WZ0HAqPUwm
15/ The murkiness of working conditions in Xinjiang is reason enough for solar companies and investors to be wary.
— Bloomberg Green (@climate) April 13, 2021
A further complication comes from why those factories are in the region: an abundance of cheap coal power. pic.twitter.com/LmwdeRSmGZ
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weehingthong 