Trump’s Border Wall Has One New Feature That Sends A Scathing Message To Mexico
Now, this is truly awesome. As always while the rest of the political arena thinks like failed department stores such as Sears and JC Penny, our awesome president is thinking like Apple and Google.
The agency in charge of U.S. border security plans has been given 30 days to start building prototypes for President Trump’s proposed wall with Mexico which is supposed to start construction later this summer. Ronald Vitiello who is the acting deputy commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency, said Tuesday that four to eight companies will get contracts for prototypes in San Diego. He also added that the companies will have 30 days to complete the models. President Trump doesn’t waste time, and that’s why the political establishment hates him.
The best part of all this is that while everyone is expecting a wall of concrete blocks Trump took the idea 1000 steps further. He is floating the idea that in order to finance the wall it would consist of solar panels. Although there currently is no cost effective way of storing solar energy this would go a long way to power border towns who spend most of their energy during the day while the sun is shining because of AC use. So Tesla won’t be needed in this case, and that’s a good thing because us already overburdened Tax Payers just can’t afford to subsidize his BS products geared towards rich elitists any longer.
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What if a wall is really built?
A solar-power system on the proposed wall could be worth billions to the companies that supply solar panels and other components. Elemental Energy estimates the array could be 1.4 gigawatts while Shah estimates it could be 5 GW. To put those numbers into perspective, 1 GW of solar will power 164,000 U.S. homes and the entire country installed 14.6 GW. From a financial standpoint, the lowest cost solar installations are about $1 per watt, but a solar wall would likely be more like $1.50 to $2 per watt, so there’s potential for as much as $10 billion in revenue if a 5 GW solar power system is put on the wall. This could be a significant project for the industry if it’s built.
Despite the market’s excitement, a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border seems unlikely. Trump’s own party hasn’t supported spending billions on the wall and there’s no support from the other side of the aisle. But if political will changes and a wall is built there could actually be a big opportunity for the solar industry.
Solar companies could make millions on Trump’s wall
The wall’s scale for potential suppliers could have a really big impact on their businesses. SunPower projects deploying 1.3 GW to 1.6 GW in all of 2017, so even on the low end of estimates the wall could be a year’s worth of supply if it is the solar supplier. First Solar projects shipping 2.4 GW to 2.6 GW in 2017, so again up to 5 GW of demand could be a significant impact on the business. Canadian Solar, the other stock that popped, expects to have 7 GW of capacity at the end of 2017. If it were the solar supplier the impact of Trump’s solar wall would be big, but not the game changer it could be for SunPower and First Solar.
What’s notable here is that First Solar and SunPower, the only two U.S. based manufacturers with anywhere near the manufacturing capacity to build the solar wall, could actually see a meaningful impact on their business if they won the contract to supply panels for the wall. But the irony of the wall has just begun.
Irony that’s too good to be true
One thing that First Solar, SunPower, and Canadian Solar have in common is that they manufacture a vast majority of their solar panels in Asia. First Solar has a plant in Ohio that makes about 550 MW of solar panels, but that’s not nearly enough to supply Trump’s solar wall with the solar panels it needs. SunPower only has a small pilot line in California, but it has 400 MW of capacity in Mexico at a plant that could be expanded in the next few years if demand picks up. Canadian Solar has 500 MW of solar panel capacity in Canada, but it’s primarily a Chinese solar manufacturer.
Unless any one of these companies built a plant in the U.S., the wall could be providing jobs for Mexico and Canadian factory workers. The irony is almost too much to handle.