Donald Trump has told supporters at a rally in Iowa that his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border would ideally be laden with solar panels, according to a new report by the BBC.
During the rally, he suggested that the idea to install solar panels on the hypothetical wall was originally his, though the green amenity had been included in several companies' bids to plan and construct the wall.
"We're thinking of something that's unique, we're talking about the southern border. Lots of sun, lots of heat," Trump said. "We're thinking about building the wall as a solar wall, so it creates energy, and pays for itself. And this way Mexico will have to pay much less money…Pretty good imagination, right? Good? My idea."
The Mexican border wall had been a cornerstone of Trump's campaign for president last year. The Department of Homeland Security invited construction companies to submit proposals for the wall's design after the January inauguration. Two hundred companies have responded so far and 20 have been short-listed.
Bloomberg reported that stocks of solar panel companies jumped on Thursday, after Trump's rally. SunPower Corp. stocks rose by 12 percent, while Canadian Solar and Jinkostar both experienced single digit climbs.
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"Just the fact that he used the word solar in a sentence and that perhaps he is not entirely anti-renewables helps," Jeff Osborne of Cowen & Co. in New York told Bloomberg in an interview.
The idea of adding solar panels to the wall, which is intended to curb illegal immigration from Mexico, has been discussed by researchers and activists alike.
By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com
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Zainab Calcuttawala is an American journalist based in Morocco. She completed her undergraduate coursework at the University of Texas at Austin (Hook’em) and reports on… More
Comments
And a solar wall will never be built for at least 3 reasons.
The cost would be enormous. Vandals would soon steal and smash the panels with rocks which they routinely throw at border guards already. There is no grid infrastructure, nor much demand for additional electricity along most of the border. And placing solar panels in a long linear configuration is inefficient.