Chinese firms gradually learned how to make solar panels more efficiently. In one case, a Chinese company bought a saw from a Swiss company that could cut thinner and thinner silicon wafers, which meant more panels from the same crystal ingot.39 They built machines to automate production lines. As they figured out what worked, they scaled up their lessons to build more production lines and larger factories. In 2000, China had barely enough solar energy to power a small town. By 2020, the nation was making 70 percent of the world’s photovoltaic panels.40 As China ramped up manufacturing, the
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