One factor that was missing from the picture of the solar industry’s shortage, including in our recent coverage, was the production capacity announcements that one expects from such a shortage and price hike – like the millions of tons mooted for polysilicon. We did say that the Chinese companies were expanding rapidly but mostly couldn’t serve the 4N8 purity needed for inner-face material, that synthetic quartz could be used beyond a certain price-point which was unclear due to most synthetic quartz in the world at present being made at 7N purity (excessive for Czochralski process crucibles), and that the two western high-purity quartz sand (HPQ) miners, Silbeco and The Quartz Corp had yet to announce production expansions. All in all,…