How much Solar power could the ''WALL" buy?

[Westbranch]

How many zeros in a Tera?  same as a trillion... 10 to the power of 12...  12 zeros

what is your National DEBT?  13 Trillion?  In perspective that 15 Billion is only ~ 1/1,000 of your national debt....

GT PV are selling at less than $1Cdn = US $.75 approx. Lets say $2.00 mounted etc, Volume discount you know!... should be about 30 Billion Watts

Mega is a Million,..30 Billion = 1 thousand x 30,000 megawatt generators...

Grand Coolee Dam generates 6,900 Megawatts, so 30 Billion Watts would equal > 4 THOUSAND more Grand Coolee dams... Not bad !

It cost $1.85 Billion to build the GC dam in 1998 $$ .... so one would bet somewhere near 10 to15 more dams for the 30 billion Watts..... maybe even less figuring in inflation over the last 19 years...?

[niel]

your math isn't quite right because 6,900 megawatts is 6.9 gigawatts or 6.9 billion watts.

btw, i sent you a pm.

[RossW]

The BIG flaw in the argument is that power in the grid must exactly equal demand, and at night time the demand is there but the supply from PV is not.

You need to factor in a seriously non-trivial amount for storage, and even then still need something for those widespread overcast days - base-load generation facilities don't just come on-line at the flick of a switch, nor can they shutdown instantly...

Generation isn't our biggest problem at the moment, IMO, rather storage is....

[niel]

ok eric, you're ignoring my pm that i sent on the 25th. so much for trying to be friendly eh?

btw, what do you care what the u.s. is spending $ on as it doesn't cost or benefit those in bc, canada? you've got your own immigration problems up there because of trudeau. would you like us to ship those that illegally cross our border up to you so we can spend it on solar projects? trudeau might like more up there and you can take the brunt of the costs to house, feed, doctor, and educate them.

[littleharbor2]

Here's an article on building the wall out of solar panels. Could be a win-win but with the current state of affairs highly unlikely.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/solar-panels-us-mexico_us_5857fa6be4b0390447097e56

[TomW]

Jeeze, leave it to RossW to toss the bucket of ice water reality  on a perfectly good theorem!

Thinking between the lines:

Consider the Mexican Border PV  wall integrated with the Tesla Power Wall why couldn't it work?

What we need to do is rebuild our infrastructure. We forgot that after you build stuff you gotta maintain it or it goes downhill and the usefulness and value evaporate.

Tom

Just another brick in the wall!

[niel]

ha ha. right, we're going to put something of value on the border. care to guess how long they will stay there? was that mexico that suggested it? what's stopping mexico from doing it if it's such a great idea?

[Westbranch]

Looks like $2 as a guess is very close to reality too...

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/the-price-of-solar-is-declining-to-unprecedented-lows/

[russ_drinkwater]

LMFAO, yep trump's wall made out of solar panels and reinforced concrete!
You boys crack me up!
Have to agree the problem is always storage!
It is always the center/apex of the problem.
The amount of energy we could harvest is not the problem, it is the storage of said energy for the rainy days!
Good thought I have to admit 

[krementz]

There also is an itsybitty problem of how long do you think the panels on the SOUTH side of the wall would last before they were stolen or vandalized?

[mike90045]

There also is an itsybitty problem of how long do you think the panels on the SOUTH side of the wall would last before they were stolen or vandalized?

They simply go on the north side     Then big reflectors are built 600 yards away, heilostats, which normally just aim at the panels, but if an invasion occurs in the daytime, the heilostats can be re-aimed to the invasion point.....