Time to inject a little science and engineering into the political discourse. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wall supporters bring out your hardhats. People who actually design and create things for a living put a major reality check on Trump’s grand wall idea.
Let’s set aside the fact that this isn’t the 2nd century B.C. and we’re not the Qin dynasty trying to protect our newfound Chinese Empire. Doesn’t matter though, the solution to a nonexistent problem is to build a YUUGE wall along the United States and Mexico border.
Get ready to see how implausible it is. Now nothing is necessarily impossible in this plan, just plain ignorant and a waste of time, money, and resources.
An Expert’s Take
Engineer Ali F. Rhuzkan took it upon himself to see the plausibility of creating Trump’s proposed wall. The results were astounding. A few months later Trump lowered his 2,000 mile estimated wall to 1,000, but still fundamental problems remain.
Building the wall is fraught with logistical, environmental, and monetary obstacles. Currently there is around 650 miles of border fencing strewn across the border. In order to meet Trump’s standards, the wall would need to be 20 feet high and 5 feet underground.
Let’s not even take into account his other hyperbolic rants about the size of the wall.
By his standards, it also needs to be made out of concrete. There are two major types of concrete construction, cast-in-place and pre-cast concrete. The former is ruled out because of the hot, arid desert climate along the border. The current fences that have been built cost $7 billion. Here’s just some of the necessary requirements.
- Pre-cast concrete would need to be created in concrete facilities, most likely brand new factories built close to the border.
- In order to get to these far reaching places of the border, a whole new infrastructure would need to be constructed to get there.
- A concrete wall of this scale then needs rebar. The engineer’s math comes out to around 5 billion pounds of reinforced steel and enough concrete to make Hoover Dam three times over — a project that actually had some value.
- Analysts predict that a project of this scale would cost anywhere from $10 to $12 billion.
Simple enough, right? Get some concrete together, some workers and bill Mexico for it. Nope.
Mountain of Problems
None of these numbers take into account yearly upkeep and maintenance. Mexico has also said time after time, they will not be responsible for paying for this type of project. Now even if this logistical nightmare is put into place, the question stands who will do it?
- The border stretches across multiple states, which would require multiple intra-state regulatory issues.
- Parts of the border also belong to citizens who own private property.
- In order to tackle this scale of a project, elite design and engineering companies would need to tackle it.
Multiple analysts have reached out to firms to talk about the proposed project, but all institutions were silent on the matter. No respectable organization is going to work on a proposed wall.
It’s absurd to even talk about anymore.
The best thing the American people can do is leave this in the bad ideas’ bin. People much smarter than the average voter know this is implausible and a waste of time.
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
