President Trump warns about two national crises that we must address immediately. One is the lawless and porous 2,000-mile border with Mexico between Brownsville on the Gulf and San Diego on the Pacific. The other is our deteriorating US electrical grid. Maybe the solutions are intertwined.
My choice for a physical barrier would be a replica of the 13,170-mile Great Wall of China, but that would be more scenic and historical than practical. Yes, we could learn from the Chinese how to discourage graffiti. A better bet is a high-voltage fence, with a proven track record since World War I.
GOP business entrepreneur Herman Cain proposed such a fence during his presidential campaign, as described in the Mother Jones News article “How to Build a Deadly Electric Border Fence.” Prisons and military installations already know about the effectiveness. The same goes for the national border between the two Koreas today, undoubtedly reducing death and bloodshed because of fewer infiltration attempts. “[G]iven that the southern border is a desert, solar panels would provide a self-sufficient energy source,” cites an expert in the article, ”a panel the size of a big-screen TV could power a 50-mile stretch of 3,000-volt fence.”
It seems likely that the solar option would receive bipartisan congressional support, as a World Post article suggests: “With solar plants along vast stretches of the almost 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border on the Mexican side, a new high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) grid could be set up to transmit energy efficiently from that long, snaking array to population centers along the border. HVDC power lines lose exponentially less energy over long distances than traditional power lines.” Economic benefits are impressive, along with a minimalist environmental footprint, thus making Mexico’s buy-in more likely.
Electrical engineering departments across the country will be given new momentum if some research can be diverted from “micro” electronics projects to “macro” power transmission, including solar, on a national level. Our country’s national anxiety about a lack of law and order regarding immigrants needs immediate attention. Perhaps a similar high-voltage fence may some day be needed up north if liberal Canadian immigration policies make the country a sanctuary for terrorists.
