Trump's Solar Wall

[Norman Alexander]

No reason to take him seriously. There will be no wall.

I beg to disagree! There WILL be a wall and it will run the whole length of the border! Just that given Trump's budget fumbling and other monetary mismanagement, it will be only one brick tall for the whole length and those bricks will be made of sun-dried mud.

 

[McHrozni]

A thousand miles of panels vs one nuclear plant? Yay solar

It depends on how you cover the wall. If you only put a top solar panel with 1.2 m in width, you get about 600 MW out. If you cover the whole height of the wall with panels, as Trump proposed (he said the higher the better), you can get 6 GW, perhaps even even twice as much if the wall is higher and you tilt the panels (which you really should do in this case).

If this power plant works 12 hours per day, 180 days per year, it produces 12 hours x 12 GW x 180/year = 26 TWh/year of power or about 5% of the entire US electricity generation at 4100 TWh/year. You can assume it would produce more than that, there are more than 180 days of sunshine in the majority of the area of the wall and the estimate for power of solar panels is done for more northern latitudes. Realistically the Wall power plant could cover about 8-10% of all US electricity consumption, if there was enough grid-level storage at hand. It's not a trivial amount of power any more.

Of course a wall with tilted solar panels on the southern side wouldn't be a very effective barrier. The difference between that and the wall Trump initially proposed is that you don't need a ladder to climb this one, just a rope to get down the other side. But hey, if the wall does get built (which I doubt it ever will), then you might as well make it useful for something.

McHrozni

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I beg to disagree! There WILL be a wall and it will run the whole length of the border! Just that given Trump's budget fumbling and other monetary mismanagement, it will be only one brick tall for the whole length and those bricks will be made of sun-dried mud.

I always figured what he meant by all that rhetoric was he would make the wall with chain gangs of Mexican laborers.

Just round them all up and any without green cards get to build a wall before they go back to Mexico. This way literally "Mexicans" paid for it, even if the legit government of Mexico didn't.

If he adds periodic thermal solar plants every so often, rather than photovoltaic, the electricity could indeed be sold to both sides of the border. Part of that cost could be written off as R&D.

Oh he absolutely can do it. The question will be if the political will survives. I seriously doubt it. Great Presidents tear down walls. Weak presidents build them. The weakest of all start but can't finish. Trump probably fits as the third option. Although just maybe he might get to the second...at best. He has ruled out the first option already, simply because his policies are so bad, even if he succeeds he fails. He can never be a great president with a platform like that.

 

[ddt]

I think a wooden vaulting horse might suffice...

Or they might hide in a peat barge which ships to the US anyway because there's not enough coal for the power plants. Or something.

 

[EvilBiker]

I'm not sure if the practice is the same in Mexico as it is here in deepest darkest Africa (ie. Cape Town) in terms of liberating high value items, but if a similar wall was constructed here, with solar panels and nice thick metallic conductors, it would be demolished overnight.

On the plus side, a lot of informal houses would go off grid, cutting down on illegal electricity connections. They'd also have spiffy new roofing and brick walls, instead of the standard corrugated iron sheeting.

Finally, scrap metal dealers would profit hugely from increased intake of copper.

 

[LTC8K6]

A solar wall as described could never come near to "paying for itself", so that's just pie in the sky.

Trump will not be in office long enough to get such a wall going well, anyway. Even if re-elected.

Even if he got all the way to funding and construction, the next admin can simply stop it, which they likely would. They would want the money for some other pet projects.

 

[MRC_Hans]

as already stated, pretty much none because it would all be wasted in transport.
I guess you could use it to illuminate the wall, maybe power webcams and wifi routers etc.

Well, you could have lots of converter units along it. Would cost a bit, tho'..

But I think we are making a basic mistake here: Trying to relate a Trump statement to the real world.

Hans

 

[Dabop]

It depends on how you cover the wall. If you only put a top solar panel with 1.2 m in width, you get about 600 MW out. If you cover the whole height of the wall with panels, as Trump proposed (he said the higher the better), you can get 6 GW, perhaps even even twice as much if the wall is higher and you tilt the panels (which you really should do in this case).
(snip).

Of course a wall with tilted solar panels on the southern side wouldn't be a very effective barrier. The difference between that and the wall Trump initially proposed is that you don't need a ladder to climb this one, just a rope to get down the other side. But hey, if the wall does get built (which I doubt it ever will), then you might as well make it useful for something.

McHrozni

Actually, looking at the lattitude (around 32 deg north for the Cal/Mexico border crossing) the optimal angle is more horizontal than vertical, with 27 degs from the horizontal being the ideal angle for that lattitude (facing south obviously)

Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico Geographic Information
Country Mexico
Latitude 32.522499

by the time you get to Brownsville in Texas its down at 25.9017° N, 97.4975° W so its panels are even flatter at around 23 deg


(http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/32500/32501/angle_023_32501_lg.gif) shows a 23 deg angle, just so you can see how `flat it is....
So that is `quite' flat, certainly moreso than having then on the vertical side of the wall


http://www.solarpaneltilt.com/

Latitude__________Full year angle______Avg. insolation on panel______% of optimum
 0° (Quito)____________0.0________________6.5__________________ 72%
 5° (Bogotá)___________4.4_______________ 6.5___________________72%
10° (Caracas)__________8.7________________6.5___________________72%
15° (Dakar)____________13.1_______________6.4__________________72%
20° (Mérida)___________17.4_______________6.3___________________72%
25° (Key West, Taipei)___22.1_______________6.2___________________72%
30° (Houston, Cairo)_____25.9_______________6.1___________________71%
35° (Albuquerque, Tokyo) _29.7_______________6.0___________________71%
40° (Denver, Madrid)______33.5______________5.7___________________71%
45° (Minneapolis, Milano)__37.3______________5.4___________________71%
50° (Winnipeg, Prague)____41.1______________5.1___________________70%

 

[McHrozni]

Actually, looking at the lattitude (around 32 deg north for the Cal/Mexico border crossing) the optimal angle is more horizontal than vertical, with 27 degs from the horizontal being the ideal angle for that lattitude (facing south obviously)

Interesting. That would make for a much grander structure, assuming the wall is 20 meters high, the length of the panels would be some 47 meters - I assumed the incline of 25° over the length of the wall, it's good enough approximation, I think. At 3000 km that would be enough for about 20-30% of all US electricity generation if adequate grid-level storage is was available. Scaling up the voltage shouldn't be that much of a problem with a project of this size either. Glorious.

The wall wouldn't even give the appearance of being an effective barrier though. Does that matter?

McHrozni

 

[Dabop]

(snip)

The wall wouldn't even give the appearance of being an effective barrier though. Does that matter?

McHrozni

Well according to http://www.arden.net.au/resources/A...w---BCA-Standards-for-staircase-rise-and.aspx it is still safe for elderly and disabled people to climb it!!!

Pitch angles greater than 35 degrees are less suitable for elderly and disabled people.

So no, not particularly effective against people climbing it (altho the Australian regulations say a ramp that steep should never be used by a person in a wheelchair, the wheelchair should be empty at at angle greater than 14 degrees.....)

So it might keep out those in wheelchairs....maybe


(edit to add- whats the name of that street in San Fransisco??? thats in all the car chase movies- really steep and they jump over the intersections???- how steep is that- about the same if not steeper than this wall would be)

 

[Jim_MDP]

...
So it might keep out those in wheelchairs....maybe


(edit to add- whats the name of that street in San Fransisco??? thats in all the car chase movies- really steep and they jump over the intersections???- how steep is that- about the same if not steeper than this wall would be)

Are you imagining many wheelchair bound illegals making the desert crossing currently?


And the famous SF street is Lombard. About 27 degree incline IIRC.
Oddly... neither the curviest nor the steepest street in SF.
Just "famous" for its design and visual appeal (wouldn't want to live there though).

And despite being a one-way... a few of us have driven it both directions.
(and the sidewalks of Market St. too... late night in the city can be fun)

 

[Dabop]

so basically about the same angle as would be used in the western end and steeper than would be required at the eastern end!!!!

(funny that, never thought about it before, but when I was watching the westerns movies the other day, I was under the impression that Texas was in the western desert... yet if you head east too far in most of Texas- you end up in the ocean and one whole side is on the ocean....LOL I never knew that before, I seriously thought it was in the `middle' of the country not having ocean frontage)

 

[Jim_MDP]

so basically about the same angle as would be used in the western end and steeper than would be required at the eastern end!!!!

(funny that, never thought about it before, but when I was watching the westerns movies the other day, I was under the impression that Texas was in the western desert... yet if you head east too far in most of Texas- you end up in the ocean and one whole side is on the ocean....LOL I never knew that before, I seriously thought it was in the `middle' of the country not having ocean frontage)

To be accurate... it's the Gulf of Mexico not the Atlantic.
But it's a pretty damn large Gulf so... six of one, half dozen of the other.

And about half our Uni students seem to take Spring Break on Texas beaches, so yeah... there's lots of waterfront.

(just noticed I can look at my map avatar and picture how large the Gulf is.)

 

[quadraginta]

I beg to disagree! There WILL be a wall and it will run the whole length of the border! Just that given Trump's budget fumbling and other monetary mismanagement, it will be only one brick tall for the whole length and those bricks will be made of sun-dried mud.

Which we will have to buy from Mexico because by then all the technology sophisticated enough to produce them will have been moved out of the country.

Thanks, Donald.

 

[quadraginta]

It depends on how you cover the wall. If you only put a top solar panel with 1.2 m in width, you get about 600 MW out. If you cover the whole height of the wall with panels, as Trump proposed (he said the higher the better), you can get 6 GW, perhaps even even twice as much if the wall is higher and you tilt the panels (which you really should do in this case).

Wouldn't you have to tilt the wall as well, so that the upper panels didn't obscure the lower ones?

<snip>

Of course a wall with tilted solar panels on the southern side wouldn't be a very effective barrier. The difference between that and the wall Trump initially proposed is that you don't need a ladder to climb this one, just a rope to get down the other side. But hey, if the wall does get built (which I doubt it ever will), then you might as well make it useful for something.

McHrozni

With sufficient tilt to keep the lower panels from being obscured from the sun by the upper ones they'd be able to just walk up that side of the wall.

Like a steep hill.

 

[quadraginta]

A solar wall as described could never come near to "paying for itself", so that's just pie in the sky.

What a co-inkydink.

Just like Trump's wall was to begin with.

 

[quadraginta]

so basically about the same angle as would be used in the western end and steeper than would be required at the eastern end!!!!

(funny that, never thought about it before, but when I was watching the westerns movies the other day, I was under the impression that Texas was in the western desert... yet if you head east too far in most of Texas- you end up in the ocean and one whole side is on the ocean....LOL I never knew that before, I seriously thought it was in the `middle' of the country not having ocean frontage)

See 1900 Galveston hurricane^WP

 

[Dabop]

See I really didnt have much to do with the USA during school, our schools tended to focus more on Oz and pommie history unsurprisingly. It wasnt until the internet became more common I realised California was on the west coast, for some reason I had always thought it was on the east coast lol

I know (well vaguely know) where Washington, LA, the Florida keys and San Fransisco all are, (altho I might have to check up to be sure) but apart from that, saying a city name- or even a state name means absolutely nothing to me (well I know Alaska and Hawaeii (sp??)- and the Burmuda triangle)


And Texas isnt as big as I expected, its smaller than the state I was born in, and less than a third of the size of the one I live in, and its not the biggest state here either- a lot of the states over there are smaller than some local council areas over here lol

 

[McHrozni]

With sufficient tilt to keep the lower panels from being obscured from the sun by the upper ones they'd be able to just walk up that side of the wall.

Like a steep hill.

With the design I had in mind it would be more of a ramp with 25° incline, that's about 47% incline. It's very steep for a road, but not steep for a hill at all.

But hey, if we agree the wall is useless as a barrier to stop illegal immigrants and Trump still wants his wall, it might as well be used as the worlds' largest solar project instead. You could also install flywheels under the solar panels to act as grid-level storage. If you're going to make stupid projects of mass engineering you might as well make them useful for something

McHrozni

 

[Dabop]

Wouldn't you have to tilt the wall as well, so that the upper panels didn't obscure the lower ones?




With sufficient tilt to keep the lower panels from being obscured from the sun by the upper ones they'd be able to just walk up that side of the wall.

Like a steep hill.

pretty much as we were talking about further up there(waves vaguely at earlier in thread)

With such shallow angles, you would really have to use them as a roof on top of the wall, if you had them as the `face' of the southern side, well according to oz regs, wheelchair users couldn't go over it in their chairs, but other disabled folks or elderly people would be fine walking over it!!!