Trump on his wall: “Stick solar panels on it”

During a meeting with Republican congressional leaders, President Trump proposed a new scheme to pay for his controversial border wall between the United States and Mexico. He suggested the government could recoup some of the tens of billions of the wall’s estimated costs by slapping solar panels on it and selling the generated electricity. Trump offered his vision of a wall standing 40 to 50 feet high covered in solar panels, which he promised would be “beautiful structures.” The president encouraged the Congress members to promote the idea, as long as they made it clear that he came up with it. Greentech Media outlined the costs and potential power generation of such a project and concluded that logistical issues would "make building a solar wall very difficult and unlikely to become a reality." Bear in mind, the man who claims that climate change is “a hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese—the same guy who abandoned the landmark Paris climate agreement last week and who’s been pushing an aggressive polluter first agenda—now sees clean energy as a solution. His wall, of course, would be an ecological disaster—with or without solar panels.