Panama Canal reduces the maximum number of ships travelling the waterway to 31 per day
Panama Canal reduces the maximum number of ships travelling the waterway to 31 per day
The Panama Canal is reducing the maximum number of ships allowed to travel the waterway to 31 per day due to a drought that has cut the supply of fresh water needed to operate the locks.
The Panama Canal announced Saturday it will reduce the maximum number of ships travelling the waterway to 31 per day, from 32 in August, due to a drought that has reduced the supply of fresh water needed to operate the locks.
That compares to daily averages of 36 to 38 ships per day under normal operation.
Nine ships per day will be allowed to use the new, bigger NeoPanamax locks and 22 per day will be handled through the older Panamax locks.
Why do they need to use fresh water to fill the locks? I get that pumping salt water may come with a bit more maintenance but it just seems like a waste to use all that fresh water.
The middle part of the canal is 26 meters above sea level, and the canal is way too big for them to pump sea water into it.
The canal traverses a fresh water lake at the middle
As I understand it, canal locks don't pump water at all.
When you're going downhill, you allow the higher water to slowly drain out of the lock, thus lowering you to the lower level
When you're going uphill, you allow the higher water to slowly drain into the lock, thus raising you to the higher level.
In both directions the water is always flowing from high to low.
Energy. It takes a lot of energy to get water that high.
like all old century inventions, the thing isn't sustainable since fresh water is finite, and the next thing close to regenerating those fresh reserves is energy-hungry desalination. might as well adress the problem head-on and power the canal with a power plant to actively fill the locks with sea water..but since its run by a third world country, i doubt they would do anything about it and instead act complacent and let things run their course
It's to keep it out of the hands of Nestlé
The world economy about to learn what a 15% reduction in Panama Canal crossings does to supply chains
It might dissuade people from buying an iPhone or computer every year. So much stuff is thrown away prematurely.
With the amount of money, the Panama canal must make; why the flip do they not have backup pumps to hoist water back up into the reservoirs? Old timey dutch windmills would even work...
The most powerful pump in the world would take a half hour to fill a Panama Canal lock from the low level to the high level (by contrast, the gravity-fed system takes only ten minutes to fill it from the lake). That pump is called the Pentair Fairbanks Nijhuis HP1-4000.340; coincidentally it actually is in the Netherlands, and it's used to control flooding. It cost about $1B (USD) and took over three years to install.
The Panama Canal would need twelve of them; one for each lock. At a total cost of over one billion dollars, the installation would suck up almost a sixth of the nation's GDP; and each time you filled a lock with one, the electricity alone would cost another $22,400. That means over a quarter of a million dollars for every ship that goes through the twelve locks, which means another $2.5m per day to send ten ships through (and note that number— it would also bring along with it a 66% cut in the possible revenue that the canal can earn from current levels, which are already half of their designed rate) because the slower moving pumps would take three times as long to cycle a lock.
Are there ways to mitigate some of this? Certainly. But I'm trying to communicate the scope of this massive problem that you're dismissing here. I'm sure they've thought about every angle, since it's something like 40% of their GDP.
My guess is that the water gets contaminated by bilge and other stuff from the cargo ships, which you dont want getting into Gatun Lake.
A. One of the rainiest regions in the world
B. Also a source of drinking water for nearby cities
Maybe they haven't needed them before now?
Matter of scale. Requires too much water to pump efficiently.
Did prices ever go down after taxpayers funded the panama canal?
Or did rich people just start making more profit?
I always thought the locks operated in pairs - raise one side, lower other direction.
This also could be a navigation thing where there is a lack of depth at the top
No, they don't have pumps or the energy needed to do that all the way to 100%. They do send water from a higher lock to a lower lock until they are both at 50%, but they have to fill the remaining portion from the lake system on top.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
PANAMA CITY (AP) — The Panama Canal announced Saturday it will reduce the maximum number of ships travelling the waterway to 31 per day, from 32 in August, due to a drought that has reduced the supply of fresh water needed to operate the locks.
That compares to daily averages of 36 to 38 ships per day under normal operation.
Nine ships per day will be allowed to use the new, bigger NeoPanamax locks and 22 per day will be handled through the older Panamax locks.
In August, the canal implemented a measure capping the number of ships passing through its locks daily to a maximum of 32.
Not enough rain has fallen to feed the watershed system of rivers and brooks that fill lakes, whose waters in turn fill the locks.
The watershed also supplies freshwater to Panama City, home to about half the country’s 4 million people.
The original article contains 174 words, the summary contains 149 words. Saved 14%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
