BORDER/ENERGY ALT/MEXICO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “President Donald Trump is crediting himself with the idea of building a Mexico border wall of solar panels. But that looks to be a borrowed brainwave; others pitched a solar wall back when he was a skeptic of tapping power from the sun…
TRUMP: ‘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. And that’s good right? … Pretty good imagination, right? Good? My idea.’
THE FACTS: His idea was to run with the idea of others.
The notion of adding solar panels to the border wall was explored in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March. Vasilis Fthenakis, director of the Center for Life Cycle Analysis at Columbia University, and Ken Zweibel, former director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University, concluded it was ‘not only technically and economically feasible, it might even be more practical than a traditional wall.’
They said a 2,000-mile solar wall could cost less than $1 billion, instead of tens of billions for a traditional border wall, and possibly become ‘wildly profitable.’ The writers were studying a concept laid out by Homero Aridjis and James Ramey in the online World Post in December…
Trump repeatedly described solar power in the campaign as ‘very, very expensive’ and ‘not working so good.’ “
-Jill Colvin and Josh Boak, “AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s solar-power brainwave was borrowed,” The Washington Post online, June 23, 2017 03:40am