The stated depth of the Death Valley canal is based on this topographic map, which suggests an estimated average altitude at 2,500 feet (762 meters) along its possible 425 km route. The staggering volume of earth that would need to be excavated can be calculated by the formula Volume = length * width * depth. That works out to 74,154,000,000 cubic meters, or 74.154 km³. These dimensions assume the canal would be perfectly rectangular. In practice, the actual excavated volume would likely be significantly larger due to slope of the sides and other factors, but the numbers illustrate the magnitude of the project. Essentially, it’s a trench roughly equivalent to 10 times the volume of Mount Everest and about half as deep as the Grand Canyon. While the Colorado River formed the latter over approximately 35 million years, modern equipment could strive to complete the project in 12 years, the same time frame as China’s Three Gorges Dam and the $2 billion Teen-Tom Waterway. Death Valley would exceed both by many orders of magnitude. Teen-Tom required 100-million dump truck loads to move 229.3 million cubic meters of excavated earth. Extrapolating, Death Valley would require about 32.36 billion dump truck loads (7,388 per day, or about 308 per hour every 24 hours) and cost about $53.9 billion per year, or $647.2 billion over 12 years. However, this simplified calculation doesn’t include additional potential costs due to natural and bureaucratic barriers.