I understand how the Panama Canal was an engineering marvel of the 20th century and how vital it is to the world economy along with the Suez Canal. With the current crisis it’s facing now of droughts, climate change, and less water volume each year to replenish it’s artificial lakes for raising and lowering the ships, what would be a good solution moving forward?
Also, what would be the ramifications, if say, we somehow converted the canal “permanent”, as in either blow up or excavate the canal enough so it would meet sea level, like a fjord I guess? Essentially dividong Panama in half lol
In: Engineering
The problem is that the panama canal is not just fed by artificial lakes, it also runs though a giant natural lake called Gatun Lake. A natural freshwater lake that is a source of drinking water and food for a whole lot of people, which means you have to be careful with how you alter the canal.
Because say you just say “well, why don’t we just pump ocean water up inland into reservoirs and then use that to raise the locks? That would work fine hydraulically, but then you start having issues with consistently releasing salt water into a fresh water lake. Do that enough and you have an ecological nightmare on your hands.
Now for your Fjord example. again, about 1/3 of the ships’ travel through the “canal” is actually over the lake. And that lake sites ~100′ above the sea, meaning if you did just cut a giant channel through panama, you are going to completely drain that lake by cutting a Fjord through it, again, ecological and economic nightmare.
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