Could President Trump’s southern border wall get a solar energy component?
That’s one idea for the wall that’s being actively discussed by President Trump and his advisors. As this clip with Sustainable Technology’s Bruce Blakeman shows, the concept isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
The fact of the matter is that the border runs through one of the sunniest regions of the entire U.S. If a solar energy gathering component were put on top of a wall, constructed via a public-private partnership of the government and a solar energy company, the power that was generated could be sold both to American power companies and Mexican ones. The latter of these would have the effect of Mexico essentially paying for part of the wall.
Of course, any revenue that was generated would fluctuate with the cost of electricity. But as this clip shows, the engineers at Sustainable Technologies also have come up with a design that maintains the wall’s original purpose — keeping illegals and drug smugglers out of the United States. It’s estimated that a key 300-mile stretch of the wall would deter as many as 80 percent of the current illegal crossings of the border.
While the entire cost of the wall couldn’t be subsidized right away by dint of the solar collectors, a substantial part of the structure’s cost could be defrayed via this smart, innovative solution. Watch as Fox’s Stuart Varney gets the inside story on this tempting possibility from Sustainable’s Bruce Blakeman.
