world wide and such you know, this is a very difficult journey. and one is very hard. they beat you, they think, oh, everything on your stuff. find out about some on stores in so migrant reliable news to migrate the we are building the road to a greener future. that's pace with solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars, countries around the world and need them to fight climate change. but so far, it's one country that's at the center of producing china. can countries go green

without china? that's what we'll explore on this episode of made need of use business magazine. i'm not easy, not, thanks for joining us in this. so we will also be exploring how start up here in jeremy could be winning the solar race or europe like take up. it's very own rare 1st. and why wind turbines are so hard to recycle the solar is the cheapest source of electricity in history. on the one hand, that's thanks to technological advancements. but it's also because solar panels are being produced on a mass of scale. and europe and jump started at the trent. a 3rd of all solar panels of worldwide used to be produced on the continent. most of them here in germany because the german government started subsidizing the panels and the 2 thousands. since then, solar has become

a lucrative business with serious competition. and today, europe is losing 80 percent of all solar panels are now manufactured in china. cheap labor and energy, it makes chinese panels much more affordable and popular. but a business from the german state of brandenburg wants to challenge china because they can feed them on price. they are aiming for efficiency, its energy from the sun. jasmine subsidies help bring the technology on line then. so to manufacturing these to china. now new technical innovations could help every ton represent here is the world's largest most efficient solar. so just time for a trial run on just one machine today. so the cameras, these next generation side of the sales are slated to go into series production

that's being held as a technological revolution. one that will increase energy output by 20 percent. our concept was to make a different source of material that would be less expensive to produce, but also be better adapted to the suns, spectra, colors and sun specs. and then we decide to combine it with the existing technology silicon by layering a 2nd solar cell in a very thin layer on top. this pilot plant to be expanded to deliver up to $10000000.00 solar cells a year. and demand is high on going invest, everyone's talking about green hydrogen, but the hydrogen has to be produced somehow. that's quite energy intensive. so the solar industry would be a good partner for that. and all that likes to get pop, not the history of solar energy in germany has been one of ups and downs. it will

began with general state subsidies. those funds have to begin for about the very start 20 years ago. it's unfair. many got the ball rolling by promoting renewable energy and helping to massively reduce costs and the fees because of indirectly, at least that led to a solar them. but it took a while, so not boom could fluid. i ask them now for that size that gemini soon lost its manufacturing. it wants to no energy was established. gym and factories could no longer compete. as in for them. if you're not going off to on this number of mistakes remain, you know, 1st of all the ground work that had been late, early on, i was beginning around the year, 2000 was allowed to just tremble and die. alas, i think the entire market collapse done by and germany just sat back and watched as many companies moved away from the many of them to china, less than it was on the see not the largest photovoltaic manufacturers are now in

asia. europe wants to regain some of its energy independence, but how likely is that this fits so should be assigned us verification of late for us to catch up with china is production capacity taken off the baltimore top of the crew, but there are things we can do for example, by manufacturing, very innovative systems that are also very efficient all cuz if it's in isn't after a promising stops and then a dry spell, germany is once again, investing news. so to technology the upswing was also one view which is symposium invalid which brought together local officials and energy companies. looks at the these chief financial officer results so that the brandenburg pilot project receives nearly $11000000.00 euros and public financing. nearly a 100000000 years were invested in the pilot pond to know, and the company has even bigger plans and store your planning. we're planning about

5 gigawatts of solar cell production stuff and also modul manufacturing to go along with that. we're still evaluating various locations, send out the evaluation, subsidies and other incentives also play a role in those evaluations. many countries hope that cutting edge technologies can tip the scale and the say, the level, the new yorks with giga factory be built in year. it will the us get this going to allow the, the u. s. has already given some concrete numbers in the installation reduction activated where there was some mention of one trillion dollars and amount that's hard to imagine. but i know many of the time and should the you try to compete with that discussions and negotiations underway behind closed doors and the stakes a high for now at least energy from the sun is the cheapest and most important form of renewable energy. the foundation of europe is green

transition. the only rest on chinese solar panels is also almost entirely depends on rare earth from china. rare earth can be found all over the world, but no one has exploited them. like china, the countries lower social and environmental standards make it hard for europe to compete. its production still minuscule. but that's set to change. laptops, smartphones, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. technologies that we take for granted today, but they wouldn't exist without rear hurts. so what are these exactly? the term renters is a bit of a misnomer because they aren't really there. strictly speaking the metals, at least in the peer for them, and they aren't necessarily rare either one small there is common in the earth crisis is conflict. for example, but large deposits are rarely found in places that can be easily mind already made

in not expecting. that's how the term where it's came about. because they're not easy to mind. and there are other issues. various assets are used to extract reference. what's left behind is polluted wastewater that can even contain radioactive elements. across all these mind me, utilities, is that the legacy is really complicated. one across all of our mental social economic elements. it's a very complicated sector with the, with a difficult history. and there is that, and obviously what the substitute wants to do it differently because otherwise we're just going to be the green people who do the same thing that everybody else did before. so the president has last year, china accounted for more than 2 thirds of all mining production of rare arts, a result of investment decisions made years ago. next come to us australia and

vermont. yeah, yeah. yeah, maybe some team i'm in this area were quite dependent on others, which includes china, europe, and us like want to become a bit more independent in that respect and nothing got on gospel. nothing is that they won't be able to become fully independent in the coming years. in the you nearly 5000000 tons of old electronic devices end up in landfills every year. so could recycling help europe become less dependent on china. yet the waste doesn't contain enough free or it's to make recycling worse, while at least using current methods. but when it comes to electric vehicles and wind turbines can soon change got an estimate in prospecting. i'm at the moment. there's increasing use of large electric motors and especially wind turbines. so in the next 5 to 10 years, a big market with a much. but again, one key challenge will be making sure that this recycling is carried out in europe

. know how at the moment you have doesn't have the know how or facility capacity. so this waste is usually shipped to south africa or so these days, such as vietnam and malaysia and was processed by the items. and then china turns it into new raw materials will stuff in the back of 500. that's also why it's $44000000.00 tons of china has the 3 largest reserves of railroads worldwide, followed by vietnam for sale and russia, which each have about half that amount. the, with the help of you funding estonia is now home to europe's 1st factory to produce the special magnets used in electric vehicle motors. and those magnets need records . producing these magnets close to home is crucial for europe's industry and the factory it. here's district environmental standards,

not heavy. the issue of sustainability will become more important in the coming years. you need to see i need to get ahold of installation. so we need to form my own partnership funding to ensure that the raw materials such as where mind and the most sustainable, environmentally friendly way possible stuff that he says and in the most socially responsible way possible to well yeah, because he's not highly of out. so y'all said, today's the stock that's fine. many manufacturers of products such as wind turbines and electric vehicles, are now looking for rare or suppliers outside of china. even if that ends up raising the price. and wind turbines are also central to our next report. if you ever looked up at one of them and been astounded by their size a wind turbines, blaise can be longer than a boeing 747. but they weren't always so enormous. the 1st

a wind farm was installed in the us and 1980. and those early models were much shorter, more expensive, and less efficient. so it's good news that the wind turbines changed and grew, but it also means that the old models have to be disposed of. and that's where we are running into big problems. a look at this bus stop this bridge and this playground. notice anything. let's take another look. the old made of a wind turbine blades because it looks cool. yeah. but it's also because we don't really know what else to do with them once that one out. we can recycle up to 90 percent of the turbine like to steal it from the towel or the cop up from all the wires. but the gigantic blades mostly get dumped into landfills. a field day for opponents of wind energy, the wind turbine junky, are they just lying around? there's nothing much renewable about these things. but the wind industry won't let

that spend. they're working on making wind turbine, blades recyclable, and saving that green image, wind turbine blades, i'm mainly made of glass. so common fibers and stuff called a poxy residue. this acts like a plastic super glue that binds them together. you end up with a very strong and resilient material, dumping them into landfills and forgetting about them as a mess of waste materials. so let's look at some ideas on how to stuff that just one way to deal with old blades is by using brute force. we can burn off of the plastic pots, or use strong chemicals to dissolve it. what remains is the fibers that can be used to make new things like cos, the planes will snowboards bunch of these processes on perfect. all of these take a lot of energy and the products that you get because the degraded by the various this technology is using by the,

the brutal method that you've been using to separate the components benefit of strong most of this used to produce a well. so it to get so much can you from any recycling process has to be economic to popple. and this is the roads that recently a different approach has become popular. turns out the materials and told on the lights are pretty good for making something else. if that cut into pieces and then shredded that can be used in some and production. you get some energy from the plastic parts of the blade, the rather than as that is heated. it gives off energy and then you're left with this chart. glass remains and that goes into concrete. and so you're able to recover some materials and use them for common materials. and then you're also able to recover some energy. waste management from the old has popped up with general electric to do exactly that. on the large scale in the us. they say

they've already recycled over $3000.00 blades this way and that's not the only benefit by burning shredded wind turbine lights instead of cold cement because could save up to 27 percent of c o. 2 emissions, according so in the analysis, by a consulting firm, if you have cement industry, which is located close enough to the place that you've got, your wind turbine plates, that this is actually something which is for hopper. it's economically advantageous, and it's environmentally favorable as well. and certainly better than landfill bucks wouldn't be better still if we could use also it on the lights to make new ones. and we, we need to ensure that we get it into a certain level and get it into most of the state of the life cycle size is. this is maxime. you again, snippet ring leads the sustainability to pop it and see montgomery. so one of the

world's largest, when to buy manufacturers, they develop what they called the recycled lights, which you might have guessed as a plates that's supposed to be easily recyclable. that's down to a new type of resume. they've invented red. okay, let me read the saw easily the s, so at the end of july and then the solution and separate space exceed a residence on the last 5 that you have a common areas. so that we can recover the separated materials again and use the new products for the moment. these new products of things like suitcases, suitcases will cost nothing. new blake's the plan is to ultimately close the loop, but small research is still needed. the recycle blades uh more expensive than traditional ones. how much exactly is the minutes go may. so i wouldn't say about the already being used in some when projects unfortunately see minutes got me. so i also wouldn't say how high the sales total sales is. that is something we cannot disclose, which is a shame because obviously the more of them we use now,

the more of a dentist slate waste, the solution could make down the line. clear is that it doesn't help with traditional blades we have to deal with now. so you will not see the impact about until 25 or 30 years, but those plans are being taken down. this is lisa, extremity who's head of sustainability, invest us another leading wind turbine manufacturer that taking a different approach in their recycling strategy. as soon as we have scaled solution, we can always start recycling and fox and choose plates that were cut off many years ago. and that can be taken down now as well as future plates. they say they figured out a way to separate the materials and existing to them plates and make them reusable, including the epoxy resin. it's supposedly done with a chemical solution that breaks it down. vestos doesn't let talking much about the new process just that so far it's only been proven in the lab. then. now the

testing, it's in the real world for 2 years to see if it can be scaled up. and what we do know is that the chemical solution s, uh s not being solid is chemicals that you will find all the show. another course gives us very good indications that this us up to this be a very cost competitive. so let's recap. there's a bunch of ideas out there on how to take a blade waste, some that already work at scale and some that still have to prove they do wind power companies across the board of throwing money at this end. while researching the story, i've repeatedly wondered why, if you ask them they will say something like this. 15 for the cheese at the club on business. it is over there and i was calling about the mate, which somehow only felt like half the answer. i mean, don't get me wrong for me, things in the dump and forgetting about all the materials that went into making them should not be the way forward, but with all the blades it looks and feels a lot worse than it is. i mean, these things are literally built to not decompose,

should be pretty stable. they will just stay the bass case. so the problem with landfilling is really the plates make up a lot of space. that will be 43000000 tons of this kind of blades by 2050. well that will be 12000000000 tons of plastic waste and landfills and the environment by then if we drive it in waste, it's very likely not going to be down to wind turbine blades. but that's not the point. pets with plastic waste, it's tiny groups as we dealt with other bits of waste. it's tiny, but it's really important in the public high. it's sort of iconic. so we've got these huge wind turbines which are making green electricity for us. and people say yes, bought at the end of life, you've got pulse of the structure which you're going to land fill, that she's not greed. so it's hot,

she really to improve the image you wind turbine technology in the public domain for the winter. the stream solving the recycling challenge is the best way to live up to their image and future proof that business you just saw it in our reports. the solar panels on our roof and the river earth and our electric cars are from china and aging isn't only leading in the energy industry. it controls another market that's central to our lives, medicine. and just like in the other sector, it's pricing out the competition. in china's clear goal to become the world's number one. also, when it comes to its domestic pharmaceutical industry, the world is becoming ever more dependent on medicine from china. the chinese have been very clever. will the world soon be completely dependent on china for medical supplies? will pharmaceutical exports then being used as political leverage?

always be cheap. with this model, the chinese pharmaceutical industry has grown rapidly and the west has helped a lot the, the background to the yeah, is that we don't want to spend much money on medicine even though it's the cheapest form of therapy. and therefore, the production costs must be reduced lunch. this important tools cost to double check that was on. just as the easiest way to do that is to go to the countries that have low labor costs, fewer environmental regulations and lower costs for energy and the like. the cost of creating a huge i gotcha film now costs $0.60 in germany as much as a stick of chewing gum experts saying that china now produces 40 percent of all active ingredients in the world. that is the part of an drug responsible for it's there of to take effect. and sometimes china is involved even if it doesn't seem to

for example, the popular teen killer. if you proof and is produced at these locations around the world, it was in short supply during the pandemic. so it was also produced in india. dr. diversity is deceptive because india important, almost all of the active ingredients it needs from china. the chinese have a key competitive advantage over the others. they now also produced most of the raw materials for the drugs, and they do so very cheaply, due to economy of scale things to its price advantage. china is leasing out foreign competitors, as in the case of several lo, sparren's, which are antibiotics. even a german manufacturer with the state of the art production technology had no chance against china. the manager to advise a remarkably only

a few years ago we produce f, a low sparren's at the company hooks of it, but that's no longer the case by just the chinese have been very clever. see how they always under cut the price. that hooks was charging until then owner of folks . a private equity company eventually said it's not worth it will stop production. if it matters because of the rules, it's just which some stonebridge and total show 9. what are the consequences short what is missing can help you take a closer look at several sparren's details. there is a key based material, amino, so folic per a noise asset which is produced exclusively in china. so if the chinese decide that they no longer want to supply it to europe via if we were to sign with taiwan in the event of war, then we would be left empty handed, so to speak, in terms of self. lo, sparren's, antibiotics are like saving drugs, antibiotic cubs and leaving, settling ex 9 major. and china once even more,

it wants to be at the forefront of new medicine. experts say that china is now researching every 10 strong in the world. that's in the development phase. views and i think they are much more innovation friendly when we spoke. and i think that ultimately these bureaucratic processes and then if they want to implement something, then they will. so the bureaucratic process is a much faster than ours since. and then on the other hand, money support and funding flows into what are referred to as core industries. and that is sort of home to a candidates team. site 0 wants to bring back pharmaceutical production. here in france, a plan to care a seat, a month of pain killer, is to be built to cover a 3rd of european demand. but this is only possible thanks to high subsidies. if you have twins, i think we 1st have to reach a consensus on which active ingredients we consider to be important. and if there are a lot of lessons and many different active ingredients floating around for them,

i think we also have to be honest and acknowledge all the. it'll be more expensive than that. and we'll have to read to pay x amount to be $8.00 that i am, but the doc, it's in, you have a single bill. would probably be $10.00 to $20.00 euro cents more expensive in germany, if it came from europe instead of china. it's unknown whether a patient's anywhere in the world would be willing to pay more for more independence from china. from green tech to medicine. here up as walking a tightrope, the aim, making quick progress while becoming more independent of china. this episode looked at how that might or might not be possible. thank you for watching and see you next time the

. the really good shape is faxing back a too much the thing. you little movements on top of this, too much, thrice to all the psyche, understanding or call them connected. and what really helps to relieve the pain. in good shape. in dw,

the intelligent life savers quickly delivering important medicines to the destination. they do not see a gas boy's name and nor explosion. they also liked to clean up mackie wolf, ken roosevelt saved the quote: robots to the rescue. in 90 minutes on d w. as these categories fill out, the

amount was being in the basement. i know the wi fi, i might just do it and i'm hosting dw, and you've called past thanks trace amount, but there's no actually about move join us as we travel around your facing the history of every day. i'll set the mess, something right around the well, no need to talk to you back. just a subscriber id. listen to pop, gosh. then we'll take you along to the right. the

. this is the, the, the news coming to line from berlin. israel says it's forces have entered guys as big as hospital is really military. so specially trained troops are carrying out a targeted operation against some us in a specific area of i'll ship a complex also coming up that trends for the us in china and to warm up trustee relations. china is leader arrives in san francisco for a summit of nations from the asian pacific region. he is 5 and we'll meet for only

the 2nd time since the us present took office mistakes or.