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Locks move a certain amount of water downstream with each operation, proportional to height and supported ship dimension. They are essentially hydro-powered. Wa

by usrusr 10y ago

Locks move a certain amount of water downstream with each operation, proportional to height and supported ship dimension. They are essentially hydro-powered. Water savings basins help increase the number of lock operations per flow, but they are expensive in construction, land use and leakage/evaporation. Usually, canal operators have to carefully balance ship throughput with available flow to not drain their highest level, investing in savings basins if necessary. The Panama canal is using a large natural lake as the highest level, which means that overutilization of the available flow would not be immediately noticeable. In this situation, it is not at all unreasonable to be concerned that planners might be a bit too optimistic in terms of flow available/savings basins required or operators in terms of flow available/throughput sustainable. It would be a shame to drain a lake just to get stuff from China to New York a tiny little bit cheaper than it already is.

CPLX 10y ago
> It would be a shame to drain a lake just to get stuff from China to New York a tiny little bit cheaper than it already is. Perhaps. There are a whole lot of lakes in the world, and only one shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- FreeFull 10y ago
  There are a lot of lakes, but constructing a new canal that's big enough for these sorts of ships is an expensive endeavour, that can only be done in few select places in the first place.
dalke 10y ago
> "The Panama canal is using a large natural lake as the highest level" The highest level is Gatun Lake, which is artificial. > "planners might be a bit too optimistic in terms of flow" Certainly, though deforestation leading to reduced water capacity for the area seems to be the larger problem. There are already problems during dry season. The issues you point are already known and important considerations for the Panama Canal and its recent upgrades.

by usrusr 10y ago

CPLX 10y ago

> It would be a shame to drain a lake just to get stuff from China to New York a tiny little bit cheaper than it already is. Perhaps. There are a whole lot of lakes in the world, and only one shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

FreeFull 10y ago
There are a lot of lakes, but constructing a new canal that's big enough for these sorts of ships is an expensive endeavour, that can only be done in few select places in the first place.

dalke 10y ago

> "The Panama canal is using a large natural lake as the highest level" The highest level is Gatun Lake, which is artificial. > "planners might be a bit too optimistic in terms of flow" Certainly, though deforestation leading to reduced water capacity for the area seems to be the larger problem. There are already problems during dry season. The issues you point are already known and important considerations for the Panama Canal and its recent upgrades.