Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Windfarm Wall

make a wall of overlapping generator blades
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With enough wind farm generator towers, the multiple overlapping extra long blades can keep out anyone who doesn't want to risk being diced up.

When there is no wind, the surplace energy from the continuous parallel strip of solar panels and back up batteries can power the rotations. As this wall is capable of supplying the electricity needs of the entire North American Continent, including Mexico and Canada, the cost of construction can be shared.

This means that several problems are solved with one initiative. Mexico pays for the wall; America gets its wall; America meets its global warming responsibilities; everyone gets cheap electricity.

xenzag, Jan 17 2019

Kiritimaticentrifugomobile [calum, Jan 18 2019]

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       Actually a brilliant solution... which, traditionally, has no place in the Halfbakery.   

       Either 1/2B ideas are becoming too mainstream, or the mainstream is approaching the Halfbaked horizon.
Sgt Teacup, Jan 17 2019
  

       High praise, but there are still some great ideas on hb, though many are indeed rather tame and not that halfbaked. The croissant count also seldom goes above ten for anything no matter how great it is. Maybe we are few now? The last survivors of the kingdom of Ozymandius: "look on my works ye mighty and despair"
xenzag, Jan 17 2019
  

       Thoughts:
A. Obvious I know, generally - as in, always - the lowest point on the circule of a turbine blade's tip is a lot higher than a human head, average or Manute Bol. The turbines erected for the windfarm wall will need to have either the blades extended - faster tip speed, more slicy! - or have the rotor centre dropped so that the wall can't be evaded by leopard crawling. Perhaps the blade tips could pass into narrow troughs.
B. Solar and wind energy production are strongly inversely correlated, so the proposal to keep the blades spinning seems sound, provided the windfarm wall to separate the US and Mexico is built on a hill in Scotland.
C. As the idea recognizes, in order to make the wall properly impenetrable, there will need to be layers of wind turbines, so that the gaps between circulation of the blade tips are too small for well timed jumps. This bashes us into the shadow effect - the upwind turbine steals wind from the downwind turbine. I am not sure how we resolve this, perhaps by making the US-side turbines smaller, repeating this shrinkage for a few iterations until there is a row of razor sharp pinwheels to slice the ankle tendons of heretofore lucky immigrants.
D. The wind does not always blow in the same direction. This is likely as true in Mexico as it is in every other place I have ever been. This is not a disaster. Perhaps a central pivoting point could be picked on the US-Mexico border, and the windfarm wall contraption, mounted on a long bar on this pivot, could rotate in the breeze. This will of course create a dynamic border, allowing temporary annexation of the western states of the US (back) into Mexico, but it's possible - I can't tell from here, I'm not the Wizard of Maps - that that temporary annexation woudl be accompanied by US control over CDMX and therefore also over the Mexican legislative apparatus, so it evens out.
calum, Jan 18 2019
  

       We're putting you in charge of the final design.
xenzag, Jan 18 2019
  

       //...layers of wind turbines, so that the gaps between circulation of the blade tips are too small for well timed jumps// - this is a fantastic idea - the only people who will be able to make it through the barrier into the USA will be those who spent their youth paying "Prince of Persia" (or any similar 1980's levels, jumps and rotating knives computer game)
hippo, Jan 18 2019
  

       If the turbines were placed in the sky above Washington, the rising hot air from the Capitol would keep them turning indefinitely.   

       // Either 1/2B ideas are becoming too mainstream, //   

       What a depressing thought.   

       // or the mainstream is approaching the Halfbaked horizon. //   

       Slightly alarming, but also intriguing and amusing. After all, there is a definite trend towards increasing weirdness and irrationality to the point where it will be simply normal to say "You couldn't make it up ..."   

       William Petersen, the producer of CSI, said in an interview that they received unsolicited details of cases from CSI's across the USA and indeed the world, giving details of bizarre deaths - often giving names, dates, and many other verifiable details. These were rejected as potential plotlines because, he said, "If you put that in an allegedly serious TV drama, people would just laugh and say 'Naaaaaah, that could never happen.'"
8th of 7, Jan 18 2019
  
      
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