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Yes, it is fresh water, but that's not what's interesting about it. If the canal wasn't there, then the river would flow straight into the ocean instead. It's n

Yes, it is fresh water, but that's not what's interesting about it. If the canal wasn't there, then the river would flow straight into the ocean instead. It's not like they're pulling from an aquifer to feed these locks. You're looking at some infrastructure limitations and acting like it's an environmental problem.

DoctorOetker 2mo ago
Thats false, the rainwater never fell to the ground and teleported to the ocean. Just consider the nearest rivers near you, now imagine someone diverting the river upstream to form an artificial lake (let's ignore the other environmental impacts of that for the sake of argument), to enable formation of something akin to the Panama Canal. I'm sure you'd have certain reservations and complaints about the local loss of access to a now diverted river. Then you come to understand that it's not even necessary for this canal to continue consuming fresh water for the operation of the locks, but hey there are some economic advantages of the shipping shortcut. Then you learn shipping capacity will be throttled because the canal is not the only consumer of the rainwater, and El Nino threatens a big drought. The ships will take longer routes outside of your economy, and wasting fossil fuels, further exacerbating global warming. All of this turns out to be a false dilemma, its perfectly feasible to have water locks operate and raise and lower ships without consuming fresh water. It's orders of magnitude more expensive to desalinate sea water than it is to simply prevent fresh water from being needlessly wasted on operating water locks... Even if you have a "surplus" of fresh water, its better to let it seep into continental ground and let water tension distribute it throughout the soil, so the soil can evaporatively cool during prolonged heat waves.
- wat10000 2mo ago
  Is Panama actually desalinating to make up for water they could have been getting from Chagres River if not for the canal? Panama is a tropical country that gets a lot of rain and I couldn't find any mention of this. The article you posted doesn't say anything like that.
  - DoctorOetker 2mo ago
    I never claimed they were? thats what you would have to do to recover the lost fresh water. In order to compare apples to apples, I compared the costs of allowing the fresh water to be lost to the ocean, and then desalinating an equivalent amount to the costs of simply not letting the fresh water get lost to operating water locks. > that gets lots of rain just like population / industry demand and renewable supply fluctuate, fresh water availability and demand fluctuate, its not that complicated. scroll up the thread: someone posts a BBC video where it is claimed the water lock operators will allow fewer ships through because its costing too much fresh water, they are already suffering a strong deficit in rainfall this spring / summer and El Nino is coming. The article from Le Monde states effectively the same things. But here you come toting around the yearly average as if this potable statistic will make the country less thirsty.
    - wat10000 2mo ago
      “It's orders of magnitude more expensive to desalinate sea water than it is to simply prevent fresh water from being needlessly wasted on operating water locks...” What is the point of this statement if desalination isn’t actually needed here?
      - DoctorOetker 2mo ago
        I never claimed desalination (which is energetically expensive) is necessary, I claim both throttling of Panama Canal traffic and fresh water loss are unnecessary. Is saving shipping fuel or saving freshwater during a drought that is expected to worsen significantly "(un)necessary"? Is human prosperity "(un)necessary"? Why are you bending over backwards to defend wasting precious resources?
        pests 2mo ago
        New commenter here, and I understand your arguments you've made in this thread, but it's like asking what is the waste of a waterfall? The math you're doing would say add up how much energy could have been extracted and compare it to equivalent generation in coal or similar. The water, even spent on the locks, goes to the ocean anyways.

DoctorOetker 2mo ago

Thats false, the rainwater never fell to the ground and teleported to the ocean. Just consider the nearest rivers near you, now imagine someone diverting the river upstream to form an artificial lake (let's ignore the other environmental impacts of that for the sake of argument), to enable formation of something akin to the Panama Canal. I'm sure you'd have certain reservations and complaints about the local loss of access to a now diverted river. Then you come to understand that it's not even necessary for this canal to continue consuming fresh water for the operation of the locks, but hey there are some economic advantages of the shipping shortcut. Then you learn shipping capacity will be throttled because the canal is not the only consumer of the rainwater, and El Nino threatens a big drought. The ships will take longer routes outside of your economy, and wasting fossil fuels, further exacerbating global warming. All of this turns out to be a false dilemma, its perfectly feasible to have water locks operate and raise and lower ships without consuming fresh water. It's orders of magnitude more expensive to desalinate sea water than it is to simply prevent fresh water from being needlessly wasted on operating water locks... Even if you have a "surplus" of fresh water, its better to let it seep into continental ground and let water tension distribute it throughout the soil, so the soil can evaporatively cool during prolonged heat waves.

wat10000 2mo ago
Is Panama actually desalinating to make up for water they could have been getting from Chagres River if not for the canal? Panama is a tropical country that gets a lot of rain and I couldn't find any mention of this. The article you posted doesn't say anything like that.
- DoctorOetker 2mo ago
  I never claimed they were? thats what you would have to do to recover the lost fresh water. In order to compare apples to apples, I compared the costs of allowing the fresh water to be lost to the ocean, and then desalinating an equivalent amount to the costs of simply not letting the fresh water get lost to operating water locks. > that gets lots of rain just like population / industry demand and renewable supply fluctuate, fresh water availability and demand fluctuate, its not that complicated. scroll up the thread: someone posts a BBC video where it is claimed the water lock operators will allow fewer ships through because its costing too much fresh water, they are already suffering a strong deficit in rainfall this spring / summer and El Nino is coming. The article from Le Monde states effectively the same things. But here you come toting around the yearly average as if this potable statistic will make the country less thirsty.
  - wat10000 2mo ago
    “It's orders of magnitude more expensive to desalinate sea water than it is to simply prevent fresh water from being needlessly wasted on operating water locks...” What is the point of this statement if desalination isn’t actually needed here?
    - DoctorOetker 2mo ago
      I never claimed desalination (which is energetically expensive) is necessary, I claim both throttling of Panama Canal traffic and fresh water loss are unnecessary. Is saving shipping fuel or saving freshwater during a drought that is expected to worsen significantly "(un)necessary"? Is human prosperity "(un)necessary"? Why are you bending over backwards to defend wasting precious resources?
      - pests 2mo ago
        New commenter here, and I understand your arguments you've made in this thread, but it's like asking what is the waste of a waterfall? The math you're doing would say add up how much energy could have been extracted and compare it to equivalent generation in coal or similar. The water, even spent on the locks, goes to the ocean anyways.