【中国依然主导着美国太阳能板市场】

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



China is maintaining its tight grip on the U.S. solar market despite efforts to loosen it, according to new data, underscoring how tough it is to supplant Chinese producers with domestic suppliers.

根据新的数据，尽管美国采取了一些措施，但中国仍保持着对美国市场的严格控制，这突出表明用国内供应商取代中国生产商是多么艰难。

The Biden administration and Congress are grappling with how best to lessen the country’s reliance on the Chinese solar industry, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pushing for stricter implementation of tariffs on solar panels to speed along the process.

拜登政府和国会正在努力研究如何最大幅度地减少国家对中国太阳能产业的依赖，两党议员都在推动更严格地执行太阳能板的关税政策，以加快这一进程。

Yet China-controlled solar-panel makers are expected to sell more in the U.S. this year as overall panel sales surge, increasing their market share to 45%, nearly 17 gigawatts, up from 42% last year, according to an analysis by PV Tech, part of U.K.-based Solar Media Ltd.

不过，根据总部位于英国的Solar Media Ltd.旗下PV Tech的分析，随着整体太阳能板销量激增，中资太阳能板制造商今年料在美国销售更多的产品，使其市场份额从去年的42%增加到45%，接近17吉瓦。

In early May, the Commerce Department is scheduled to issue a final determination in a yearlong investigation of whether Chinese solar-panel manufacturers have been dodging U.S. tariffs on solar panels by routing products through four countries in Southeast Asia.

美国商务部对中国太阳能板制造商是否绕道四个东南亚国家出口产品来规避美国对太阳能板征收的关税进行了为期一年的调查，并定于5月初作出最终裁定。

Its preliminary finding, in December, did find some circumvention. The department is expected to implement new tariffs of up to 250% on some products from those countries.

去年12月份的初步调查结果确实发现了一些规避关税行为。预计美国商务部将对来自这些国家的一些产品实施最高250%的新关税。

The new tariffs won’t go into effect right away. President Biden declared a two-year moratorium on such tariffs last June, following outcry from American solar developers saying their projects would be hurt by them. PV Tech estimates that around 40% of the U.S.’s solar-panel supply would be affected by the tariffs.

这些新关税不会立即生效。去年6月，拜登宣布此类关税暂缓两年征收，以回应美国太阳能开发商的强烈要求，这些企业称其项目将因为关税受损。PV Tech估计，美国约40%的太阳能板供应将受到这些关税的影响。

Now, however, Republicans in both houses of Congress are pushing a resolution to overturn Mr. Biden’s moratorium, citing a need to protect American companies from unfair Chinese trade practices. Some Democrats have supported the effort as well, and solar experts say the resolution is likely to pass the House and possibly the Senate.

不过现在，国会两院的共和党人正在推动一项决议，以推翻拜登的暂缓征税令，理由是需要保护美国公司免受中国不公平贸易行为的影响。一些民主党人也支持这项动议，太阳能专家称，该决议很可能在众议院获得通过，在参议院也有可能通过。

Solar-industry executives and other Congressional Democrats are lobbying against the resolution, saying that overturning the moratorium could cost solar-panel importers up to $1 billion in retroactive duties, drive up panel costs and lead to project cancellations.

太阳能行业高管和其他国会民主党人则在游说反对该决议，称推翻暂缓征税令可能令国内太阳能板进口商面临至多10亿美元的追溯关税，推高电池板成本并导致一些项目被取消。

On April 17, more than 400 solar companies signed a letter to the Biden administration, arguing that the moratorium, which has 14 more months to run, gives manufacturers time to set up new U.S. solar-panel factories that could pick up some of the slack if exports from China-controlled suppliers became harder to get.

4月17日，400多家太阳能公司签署了一封致拜登政府的信，认为还有14个月到期的暂缓征税令可让制造商有时间在美国新建太阳能板工厂，一旦从中国控制的供应商进口电池板的难度加大，这些工厂或可以填补一些缺口。

Many industry analysts expect Mr. Biden will veto a resolution, if it does pass Congress.

很多行业分析师预计，如果国会真的通过一项决议，美国总统拜登会将其否决。

So far, when the Biden administration has had to choose between supporting the climate and promoting America-first trade policies, the “administration has leaned toward decarbonization,” said Timothy Fox, an analyst at Washington, D.C.-based research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

华盛顿特区研究公司ClearView Energy Partners LLC的分析师Timothy Fox说，迄今为止，当拜登政府不得不在支持气候与推行美国优先贸易政策之间做出选择时，“拜登政府都倾向了去碳化”。

In addition to the expected tariffs, the U.S. has taken other actions to push back against Chinese solar imports and encourage the purchase of domestic goods instead.

除了上述预计将加征的关税之外，美国还采取了其他行动来抵制中国太阳能产品的进口，并鼓励购买美国本土商品。

Those moves have combined with shipping bottlenecks during the pandemic and a push by American solar developers to find alternate sources of supply, helping to dent China’s dominance. China-controlled solar-panel makers—most of them shipping products from Southeast Asia—had a U.S. market share of 64% in 2020, PV Tech said. PV Tech’s 2023 forecast suggests the erosion of China’s market share has stopped for now.

这些举措，再加上疫情期间的航运瓶颈以及美国太阳能开发商寻找替代供应来源的行动，共同起到了削弱中国主导地位的作用。PV Tech表示，中国控制的太阳能板制造商2020年在美国市场的份额为64%，这些制造商中的大部分从东南亚出口产品。PV Tech对2023年的预测显示，中国市场份额被侵蚀的情况已经暂时停止。

Indian companies have also increased their share of panel sales to the U.S., a trend that is likely to accelerate this year as buyers here look for alternative sources of supply in case Chinese sales are disrupted, PV Tech’s research found.

PV Tech的研究发现，印度公司向美国市场销售太阳能板的份额也有所增加，这一趋势今年可能加速，原因是，为防止出现中国产品销售受阻的情况，一些美国买家在寻找替代供应来源。

Chinese solar-panel manufacturers have been able to keep their leading position in the U.S. because they have been fast to change business models, move locations and take other steps to ensure their sales can continue, said Finlay Colville, PV Tech’s head of research.

PV Tech的研究主管Finlay Colville说，中国太阳能电池生产商之所以能够保住在美国的领先地位，是因为它们一直在快速改变商业模式、转移地点、并采取其他措施，以确保销售能够维持下去。

“The Chinese companies that have been supplying the global industry have typically been ahead of any policy change and have always had their plan B ready,” Mr. Colville said. “They’ve just been very skillful at working around trade issues.”

“已经在为全球产业供货的中国公司通常都能赶在任何政策变化之前做出应对，而且一直都有已经准备好的B计划，”Colville说。“在避开贸易问题方面，他们都非常老练。”

During the past few years, the U.S. has taken increasingly strong steps to try to decrease its reliance on Chinese manufacturers in industries such as batteries, wind or solar—energy sources that are expected to take a much bigger share of the nation’s power mix in the next decade.

过去几年，美国已经采取了越来越有力的措施，试图减少在电池、风能或太阳能等行业对中国制造商的依赖。据预测，未来十年风能和太阳能这类能源在美国的电力结构中所占份额将大大增加。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


In solar, where China is estimated to control more than 80% of the global supply chain, the U.S. has tightened tariffs on Chinese solar panels and barred products from the important solar-manufacturing base of Xinjiang in western China, where the U.S. says human-rights violations are occurring.

在太阳能领域，中国估计控制了全球供应链的80%以上，美国已经收紧了对中国太阳能板的关税，并禁止进口来自中国西部重要的太阳能生产基地新疆的产品。美国称新疆正发生XX事件。

Last year, the U.S. also passed legislation that offers massive incentives for solar-manufacturing projects in the country, and for solar farms that use those domestically produced parts. Since then, dozens of manufacturers have unveiled billions of dollars in new proposed solar-component plants.

去年美国还通过立法，为该国的太阳能制造项目以及使用美国国产部件的太阳能发电厂提供大规模激励措施。自那以来，众多制造商已公布了数以十亿美元计的新太阳能组件工厂计划。

But some of those factories may never materialize, while most will take years to build, solar experts say.

但有太阳能专家表示，其中一些工厂可能永远不会成为现实，同时大多数工厂将需要数年时间才能建成。

Meanwhile, Chinese solar manufacturers have started moving larger chunks of their solar supply chains outside of the country, letting them avoid measures such as the ban on goods from Xinjiang or the expected tariffs on panels from Southeast Asia.

与此同时，中国的太阳能制造商已经开始将更大一部分太阳能供应链转移到国外，从而绕开诸如禁止进口来自新疆的货物或对东南亚电池板征收潜在关税等措施。

“The capital is there in China, and they know how to deploy new manufacturing very quickly,” Mr. Colville said.

Colville说，在中国的资本知道如何快速部署新的制造能力。
【美国欲建稀土供应链挑战中国主导地位，为何说并非易事？】


A bipartisan bill set to be introduced in Congress this week would offer a tax credit for establishing rare-earth magnet production in the U.S., a crucial component for the clean-energy transition. MP Materials efforts to build a local supply chain demonstrate the challenge for American producers.

美国国会两党议员本周将提出一项法案，为在美国建立稀土磁铁生产提供税收抵免；稀土是清洁能源转型的关键材料之一。不过，美国稀土材料公司MP Materials建立本地供应链的过程显示出美国生产商面临的挑战。

The bill, to be introduced by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R., Pa.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), includes a $20-a-kilogram credit for U.S.-made magnets, while manufacturers sourcing 90% of their component parts from U.S. producers could be entitled to a $30-a-kilogram credit, according to a draft seen by The Wall Street Journal. The credit is planned to be phased out by Dec. 31, 2035.

《华尔街日报》看到的一份草拟法案提出，对美国产稀土磁铁给予每公斤20美元的抵免，同时向美国供应商采购90%零部件的制造商或有资格获得每公斤30美元的抵免。这项税收抵免政策计划在2035年12月31日前逐步退出。该法案将由宾夕法尼亚州共和党众议员Guy Reschenthaler和加州民主党众议员Eric Swalwell发起。

The bill, known as the Rare Earth Magnet Manufacturing Production Tax Credit Act of 2023, is the latest in a list of incentives to encourage rare-earth production as more attention is being focused on the metals and where they come from.

该法案被称为《2023年稀土磁铁制造生产税收减免法案》(Rare Earth Magnet Manufacturing Production Tax Credit Act of 2023)，是美国鼓励稀土生产本地化的又一项激励措施。目前稀土及其产地正受到越来越多的关注。

Rare earths such as neodymium, dysprosium and terbium are used in permanent magnets that are needed to help drive motors in electric vehicles, offshore wind turbines and increasingly within robotics. According to experts, they are going to become more crucial as the drive to adopt clean-energy technology grows. Wood Mackenzie’s Rare Earths Market Service estimates demand for rare-earth oxides stood at 171,300 metric tons in 2022 and projects it to grow to 238,700 tons by 2030.

钕、镝和铽等稀土元素可生产永久磁铁，而永磁是电动汽车和海上风力涡轮机发动机的重要材料，并且也越来越多地用于机器人。据专家称，随着清洁能源技术应用的势头升温，稀土的重要性将上升。伍德麦肯兹(Wood Mackenzie)的稀土市场服务(Rare Earths Market Service)估计，2022年稀土氧化物的需求量为17.13万吨，预计到2030年将增长到23.87万吨。

The bill comes amid efforts to revive the Mountain Pass mine, that sits on the border between California and Nevada. It was once the world’s No. 1 source of rare earths—elements valued for their magnetic and conductive properties. Now it is looking to get back in the game and deliver a domestic supply of them for the energy transition, all the way from mine to magnet.

与此同时，随着近年来稀土元素因其磁性和导电性能身价倍增，位于加州和内华达州边界、曾经是全球第一大稀土产地的芒廷山口矿也在努力恢复往日的荣光。现在，该矿想要重返稀土磁铁生产赛道，为美国提供自己的稀土供应链用于能源转型，覆盖从采矿到磁铁生产的整个过程。

The Mountain Pass mine started life soon after the gold rush in the 1870s, producing mainly gold, copper, lead and zinc. Production changed over the years, and from the 1960s to the 1990s, it was the primary global source of rare earths. After financial and environmental struggles at the turn of this century, mining at the site was suspended in 2002 before being bought and restarted in 2017 by MP Materials Corp., a Las-Vegas-based rare-earth producer.

19世纪70年代淘金热后不久，芒廷山口矿就开始生产，主要开采金、铜、铅和锌。此后生产逐步发生变化，从20世纪60年代到90年代，芒廷山口矿是全球稀土的主要来源。在本世纪初遭遇一些财务和环境难题后，该矿的开采于2002年暂停，之后于2017年被总部设在拉斯维加斯的稀土生产商MP Materials Corp.收购并重新启动。

“Mountain Pass is arguably the best rare-earth asset in the world. If it were oil, it would be Saudi Arabia,” says James Litinsky, chief executive of MP Materials, which continues to own and operate the mine.

MP Materials的首席执行官James Litinsky表示：“芒廷山口可以说是世界上最好的稀土资产。如果把稀土比作石油，那么芒廷山口就好比沙特。”该公司继续拥有和经营该矿。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Yet, during the time when mining was suspended at the site, the rare-earth industry shifted from niche products to reaching critical status in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Now, roughly 60% of all mined rare-earth minerals are sourced from China. Three other major sources exist in Myanmar, Australia and Mountain Pass.

但在该地暂停开采期间，稀土行业已今非昔比，从当初的小众产品变身为美国、欧洲和日本非常看重的关键原材料。现在，所有开采的稀土矿物中，大约60%来自中国。另外三个主要产地在缅甸、澳大利亚和芒廷山口。

While the 60% might not sound that concentrated, the dependence on China is even more pronounced further down the supply chain. The rare-earths supply chain is typically made up of three main parts: mining and concentrating the raw materials, refining them to produce oxides and producing the magnet. In recent years, China has come to control 91% of refining activity, 87% of oxide separation and 94% of magnet production, according to the Centre for European Policy Studies, or CEPS.

虽然60%的比例听起来还不算太集中，但在稀土供应链的下游环节，对中国的依赖更为明显。稀土供应链通常由三个主要部分组成：开采和浓缩原材料；精炼以生产氧化物；生产磁铁。根据欧洲政策研究中心(CEPS)的数据，近年来中国已控制了91%的精炼业务、87%的氧化物分离业务和94%的磁铁生产业务。

“China has a significant dominance of rare earths, and in the back of people’s mind is always the idea of geopolitical tensions and how that could affect production and exports,” said Luisa Moreno, president of Defense Metals Corp., a development-stage mining company based in Vancouver, Canada. “There is not a lot of production outside of China and so in order to supply the market with rare-earth products we will have to bring other projects into production.”

加拿大温哥华处于开发阶段的矿业公司Defense Metals Corp的总裁Luisa Moreno说：“中国在稀土方面有很大优势，而且人们脑海中总是有地缘政治紧张局势及其可能会如何影响生产和出口的想法。”她还称：“中国以外的地方产量不大，所以为了向市场提供稀土产品，我们将不得不使其他项目投产。”

As companies across the globe consider getting into the business, MP Materials’ experience offers insight into some of the challenges.

在全球各地的公司都在考虑涉足这一行业时，MP Materials的经历让人们了解到其中的一些挑战。

The company restarted mining rare earths at Mountain Pass late in 2017, and by 2019 it was producing about 15% of the global market supply of rare-earth concentrates. MP Materials aims to build a refining facility on-site by the end of this year and is investing $700 million in the final stage of the supply chain, building a site in Fort Worth, Texas, to produce magnets.

MP Materials于2017年末重新开始在芒廷山口矿开采稀土，到2019年，该公司生产的稀土精矿约占全球市场供应总量的15%。MP Materials的目标是在今年年底前在该稀土矿现场建一个精炼设施，并向供应链的最后环节投资7亿美元，在得克萨斯州沃思堡建一个生产磁铁的场地。

Mr. Litinsky said the only reason his company was able to start refining is because it has managed to get the mining stage of the rare-earth process profitable. Offtake agreements, whereby companies agree to buy some of the output, and government support are crucial, but the most important element remains private funding, he said. “This was a private solution,” Mr. Litinsky said, adding that it required business support to move forward.

Litinsky说，MP Materials能够开始精炼的唯一原因是该公司已成功使稀土工艺的采矿阶段实现盈利。他表示，承购协议和政府支持至关重要，但最重要的因素仍然是私人资金。Litinsky说，这是一个私人解决方案，需要商业支持才能推进。

MP Materials earlier this year, in February, entered into offtake agreements with Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. for rare-earth oxides, and in February 2022, the company secured tens of million dollars in funding from the U.S. Defense Department to design and build a facility to process heavy rare-earth elements. Before that, in 2021, General Motors Co. and MP Materials agreed to a long-term partnership where the latter would supply the car maker with alloys and magnets from its Texas plant.

MP Materials今年2月与住友商事株式会社(Sumitomo Co.,8053.TO)签订了稀土氧化物的承购协议。2022年2月，MP Materials从美国国防部获得数千万美元的资金，用于设计和建造一个加工重稀土元素的设施。2021年时，通用汽车公司(General Motors Co., GM)和MP Materials同意建立一项长期合作关系，后者将从其得克萨斯州的工厂向通用汽车提供合金和磁铁。

“It cannot happen overnight. Each step requires scale and capital, north of $1 billion. But if you miss one step then you do not have a supply chain that’s secure,” Mr. Litinsky said.

“这不可能在一夜之间形成。每一步都需要规模和资金，在10亿美元以上。但如果你漏掉一步，就无法拥有一个安全可靠的供应链，”Litinsky说。

Most challengers are learning as they go—this poses another hurdle to establishing full-scale facilities. Defense Metals’ Ms. Moreno said that little knowledge exists outside of China in building the whole supply chain. “Expertise has to be developed. China has it, we have to develop this side, and do it in a competitive and efficient way.”

多数挑战者都是摸着石头过河，这对于建立完善的设施是又一个障碍。Defense Metals的Moreno称，在中国之外，几乎没有建立整个供应链的知识。“必须积累专业知识。中国有专业知识，我们必须发展这一方面，并以有竞争力和高效的方式进行。”

Junior mining projects are emerging but they often need investment from larger mining companies, which can prove troublesome. Uncertainty over the timing and scale of returns owing to lengthy project times means that the large amount of capital required to bring a project to fruition is hard to secure.

初级采矿项目正在出现，但往往需要更大矿业公司的投资，事实可能证明这是棘手的。由于项目时间长，回报的时间和规模不确定，这意味着很难获得使项目取得成果所需的大量资金。
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“Strategic development of a rare property involves multiple steps,” said Jim Hedrick, president of U.S. Critical Materials, a prospective mining project based in Montana. Mr. Hedrick said that once a site is discovered it still requires continual exploration and development to determine its size and accessibility. Permitting is another issue as it can take years to obtain approvals.

蒙大拿州一个潜在采矿项目U.S. Critical Materials的总裁Jim Hedrick说：“稀有资源的战略发展涉及多个步骤。”Hedrick表示，一旦发现一处矿藏，仍需要持续的勘探和开发，以确定其规模和可利用性。许可也是一个问题，获得批准或需数年时间。

According to Ms. Moreno, part of the challenge is that no two deposits are alike—with different impurities within the rock—so most require bespoke processing equipment that alone can cost tens of millions of dollars.

据Moreno称，挑战之一是没有两个矿床是相似的，岩石中的杂质不同，因此多数需要定制的加工设备，仅此一项就可能花费数以千万美元计的资金。

“There are hard rock mines, clay mines, and some developing sources from tin mines and mineral sands,” said Ryan Castilloux, founder and managing director of Adamas Intelligence, a consulting firm advising on strategic metals and minerals. Concentrators are usually built at the mine but often produce harmful castoff materials such as thorium and uranium, which are radioactive. The mining and concentrate stage alone can cost more than $1 billion to set up and can be the most difficult to establish, according to industry players such as MP Materials.

“有硬岩矿、粘土矿，还有一些从锡矿和矿砂中发掘稀土资源，”Adamas Intelligence的创始人、董事总经理Ryan Castilloux说，该公司是一家战略金属和矿物咨询公司。浓缩厂通常建在矿区，但往往会产生有害的废料，如钍和铀，它们具有放射性。据MP Materials等业内公司称，仅搭建起采矿和浓缩阶段业务就可能耗资超过10亿美元，这些业务环节可能是最难建立的。

At present, only two companies in the world have concentrating facilities outside of China and Myanmar. One is MP Materials and the other is Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. Lynas has a facility in Malaysia but it is moving some of that processing—the cracking and leaching portion—to Australia after the Malaysian government moved to limit imports of rare-earth concentrates that contain radioactive elements in an effort to stop harmful waste production onshore. Lynas has appealed this decision.

目前，全球只有两家公司在中国和缅甸之外拥有浓缩设施。一个是MP Materials，另一个是澳大利亚的Lynas Rare Earths Ltd.。Lynas在马来西亚有一个设施，但由于马来西亚政府采取措施限制含有放射性元素的稀土精矿的进口，以阻止国内产生有害废物，该公司将部分工序，即裂解和浸取部分转移到澳大利亚。Lynas已对马来西亚政府的这一决定提出上诉。

Lynas’s waste-treatment facility in Malaysia is an example of how these processing facilities can become a “political hot potato,” Mr. Castilloux said.

Castilloux说，Lynas在马来西亚的废物处理设施就是一个例子，说明这些处理设施如何成为一个“棘手的政治问题”。

There are magnet-production facilities dotted around the world, including Canadian supplier Neo Performance Materials’ facility in Estonia, but again high startup costs and the requirement of specialist equipment and knowledge act as barriers to wide-scale development of the field.

世界各地都有磁铁生产设施，包括加拿大供应商Neo Performance Materials在爱沙尼亚的设施，但高额的启动成本以及对专业设备和知识的要求，同样成为该领域大规模发展的障碍。

“At the moment, there’s little demand outside of China [for rare earths] but until we have a full supply chain, we don’t have a secure supply chain so you have to build it,” Mr. Litinsky of MP Materials said. “We need to continue to go further.”

“目前，中国以外地区的（稀土）需求很少，但只有拥有了完整的供应链，供应链才是安全的，所以你必须把它建立起来，”MP Materials的Litinsky说。“我们需要继续前行。”