The Cost of the Wall with Mexico figured out - Deep Pockets are needed for a HUUUGGE WALL

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/31/1416884/-So-President-Trump-you-want-a-Great-Great-Wall-let-s-look-at-the-numbers?detail=facebook


So, President Trump, you want a Great Great Wall... let's look at the numbers

Fun fact: the US/Mexico border is 1,954 miles long.

Fun fact: the Great Wall of China contained about 3,889 miles of actual wall - we don't want to count the 1,500+ miles of trenches or rivers. No sir, nothing but real wall for us.

So our Great Great Wall will be just a few miles less than 1/2 the length of the Great Wall. That shouldn't be a problem - certainly less difficult than building a 95 story skyscraper... after all, our Dear Leader told us that long ago.

Big question: how high should we build our Great Great Wall?

Hmmm, former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano was famous for saying: "Show me a 50 foot wall and I'll show you a 51 foot ladder."

Poppycock, I tell you! She should have checked: the tallest ladder for sale at Home Depot in Mexico is 40 feet tall. That means there is no such thing as a 51 foot ladder in Mexico.

So we'll make our wall 50 feet tall just to be safe.

Next up, we know these pesky Mexicans just love to dig tunnels - remember El Chapo? So we need to dig our Great Great Wall in deep. Let's go for 30 feet, and we'll put some surprises down at the base for anyone who thinks they can get past us. We'll add the caveat that we only have to dig until we hit bedrock, so we might save some digging there.

In order for our wall to be not just great but Great Great, it's gonna have to be thick, too.  We'll do the detail design later - after our (soon-to-be) Maximum Leader for Life appoints a Great Great Manager for the project - but for now, let's just go for a round number..... 10 feet.

Let's do a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) and a ROM (Rough Order of Magnitude) to see what we're looking at for this project.

We've got dimensions: 80 feet high from the bottom of the foundation and 10 feet wide. That's 800 square feet of cross-section, but concrete is sold in cubic yards, so let's see how much we need:

800 square feet / 9 feet per yard = 89 square yards cross-section

1760 yards per mile * 1954 miles = 3439040 yards

3,439,040 yards * 89 square yards = 306,074,560 cubic yards of concrete needed

For reference, the Hoover Dam contains 3,250,000 cubic yards of concrete.