Putting solar panels on the wall? It’s official.

It was mentioned earlier on the Revo. It is official.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he wanted to install solar panels on his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, telling a crowd at a campaign-style rally that the proposal would save money.

Mr. Trump has privately discussed putting solar panels on the barrier, but the rally was the first time he mentioned the idea in public.

“Think of it—the higher it goes, the more valuable it is,” Mr. Trump said to several thousand people in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, of the solar-paneled wall. “Pretty good imagination, right?”

Mr. Trump has insisted that the wall, a core promise of his presidential campaign, will be built to prevent illegal immigration and drug smuggling, and that Mexico will pay for it. After Mexican leaders pushed back against the idea, the president-elect backtracked in January, suggesting the U.S. would pay upfront for the wall and Mexico would return the money later.

Why would any company want to put solar panels on an exposed, linear wall far from where electricity is needed when it would be far more effective to simply create a properly engineered solar facility? I don’t think any power company would. They would opt to create proper solar farms in the desert close to where the power is consumed. There is no reason why any power company would bid to put solar panels on the wall.

Or is the government going to get into the business of selling electricity? That raises questions about government funded competition with the private sector.

Of course the competition would be pretty poor. Electricity produced on distant, exposed, difficult to maintain wall panels will be far more expensive than that produced in more efficient, secure, densely engineered close to population centers. Wall sites panels will, therefore, require a significant taxpayer subsidy.

So that’s the plan? Build government funded solar panels in an inefficient, exposed, difficult to maintain manner that, naturally, increases the cost of production? Then, in order to sell electricity into the grid at market rates, create a permanent taxpayer appropriation to maintain the wall panels?

I guess.

More at the WSJ.