4 ms·

I guess it never occurred to me it was fresh water. Can they not just use salt water?

jillesvangurp 3y ago
No, because the salt water is at sea level and the drinking water is at the level the ships need to rise to via the locks. Water flows out from a lake at 26 meters above sea level that is fed by a river that comes from the mountains by gravity. Making the amounts of water that drains out from there move up requires massive amounts of energy. We're not talking a few little pipes here and there. The pumps and energy generation infrastructure project needed to get that done would probably rival or surpass the Panama canal in complexity, scale, and scope. It would be expensive and take a long time to build. Add to that the complexity of doing that while not shutting down the canal for a few years. Basically the amount of water needed for the locks is a function of the amount of tonnage that ships through the canal and the altitude that ships needs to rise to. We're talking about pumping millions of tonnes of water up by 26 meters. Think something in the order of hundreds of gwh per day at least. Of course you could continue to rely on rivers for part of that. But still, it might be doable but it wouldn't be cheap. That and the fact that pumping a lot of salt water would destroy large parts of the ecosystem in Panama is a reason that will likely never happen. The locals might object a bit to that. And they probably also rely on that water for drinking and agriculture.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  I'd think you could recapture a lot of the energy as it drained right? Proposed solutions involve a lot of pumping and seem to rely on it. Hydroelectric efficiency is over 90%. The salt water would be largely contained so I'm not sure why it would be so bad for the ecosystem. I don't doubt it would be very expensive, everything about that canal has been. But if this turns out to be the new normal, rather than just a weather abberation, it will be cheaper than re-reouting all of those ships, whether the pumping is done with fresh or salt water.
jacquesm 3y ago
If you want to destroy Panama that would be an excellent way to accomplish it.
namaria 3y ago
The canal is connected to a natural fresh water system. You can't just pump salt water in there without risking a massive ecological disaster.
- dumbo-octopus 3y ago
  You could pump water to the highest lock lower than the lake though. But salt water doesn't mix well with things not intended for salt water.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    No you can’t: locks need to open for ship to go through and pools mix when this happen. This is also true for lockTop and LockTopMinusOne. In Panama Canal, LockTop is the lake. It’s Lake Gatún and provide fresh water for Panama City as well as other life forms in this pristine region.
    - lstodd 3y ago
      How it is pristine when major part of worldwide shipping has been going through it for more than a century I cannot fathom.
      - pchristensen 3y ago
        Much of the watershed has been protected from development in order to ensure the water supply for the canal. Also, no matter the current level of pristineness/pollution, there's no way pumping millions of gallons of seawater per day would help.
        dumbo-octopus 3y ago
        Unless of course it prevented the draining of millions of gallons of freshwater. No matter what there is some amount of mixing with the sea. The question is at which lock should that happen. Currently it's at lock 1, everyone here is arguing it'd be absolutely impossible for it to happen at any other lock, without providing any justification.

No, because the salt water is at sea level and the drinking water is at the level the ships need to rise to via the locks. Water flows out from a lake at 26 meters above sea level that is fed by a river that comes from the mountains by gravity. Making the amounts of water that drains out from there move up requires massive amounts of energy. We're not talking a few little pipes here and there. The pumps and energy generation infrastructure project needed to get that done would probably rival or surpass the Panama canal in complexity, scale, and scope. It would be expensive and take a long time to build. Add to that the complexity of doing that while not shutting down the canal for a few years. Basically the amount of water needed for the locks is a function of the amount of tonnage that ships through the canal and the altitude that ships needs to rise to. We're talking about pumping millions of tonnes of water up by 26 meters. Think something in the order of hundreds of gwh per day at least. Of course you could continue to rely on rivers for part of that. But still, it might be doable but it wouldn't be cheap. That and the fact that pumping a lot of salt water would destroy large parts of the ecosystem in Panama is a reason that will likely never happen. The locals might object a bit to that. And they probably also rely on that water for drinking and agriculture.

mattmaroon 3y ago
I'd think you could recapture a lot of the energy as it drained right? Proposed solutions involve a lot of pumping and seem to rely on it. Hydroelectric efficiency is over 90%. The salt water would be largely contained so I'm not sure why it would be so bad for the ecosystem. I don't doubt it would be very expensive, everything about that canal has been. But if this turns out to be the new normal, rather than just a weather abberation, it will be cheaper than re-reouting all of those ships, whether the pumping is done with fresh or salt water.

jacquesm 3y ago

If you want to destroy Panama that would be an excellent way to accomplish it.

namaria 3y ago

The canal is connected to a natural fresh water system. You can't just pump salt water in there without risking a massive ecological disaster.

dumbo-octopus 3y ago
You could pump water to the highest lock lower than the lake though. But salt water doesn't mix well with things not intended for salt water.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- aziaziazi 3y ago
  No you can’t: locks need to open for ship to go through and pools mix when this happen. This is also true for lockTop and LockTopMinusOne. In Panama Canal, LockTop is the lake. It’s Lake Gatún and provide fresh water for Panama City as well as other life forms in this pristine region.
  - lstodd 3y ago
    How it is pristine when major part of worldwide shipping has been going through it for more than a century I cannot fathom.
    - pchristensen 3y ago
      Much of the watershed has been protected from development in order to ensure the water supply for the canal. Also, no matter the current level of pristineness/pollution, there's no way pumping millions of gallons of seawater per day would help.
      - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
        Unless of course it prevented the draining of millions of gallons of freshwater. No matter what there is some amount of mixing with the sea. The question is at which lock should that happen. Currently it's at lock 1, everyone here is arguing it'd be absolutely impossible for it to happen at any other lock, without providing any justification.