It’s tempting to look at this situation and despair but I suggest an alternative. While slavery in any form is terrible, we should look at the longer term arc of the solar industry and the panels in particular. At the moment lots of us are putting panels on our roofs and that’s good. But as they say in the trade, solar doesn’t work at night and wind doesn’t work on a still day. What to do? Well, the industry would like you to buy a big battery to store power for when you can’t get it from the grid. Solar + battery is a significant investment and one that’s hardly necessary. Check out GEOTHERMAL power in which heat from deep underground is used to drive steam generators. Not talking about the heat pump in your backyard BTW. There are thousands of geothermal projects gongoing right now. For instance Sonoma Valley generates 750 MW of power and I think that’s the future of clean energy. Solar and Wind will be interesting footnotes years from now.