Why the Panama Canal is Dying

“The war in the Middle East will eventually end.” That’s what I love about this channel: it’s boundless optimism.

As a Panamanian, the government is planning to dam other rivers to supply water to the canal. We have a lot of water, it's just not distributed efficiently.

Interesting that the Mexican canal proposal also includes industrial parks along the route. Instantly sounds like "set up your new vehicle assembly plant here" to me, which is a pretty genius position to take, especially compared to the other alternatives proposed.

I’m Panamanian and I got to tell you, they did teach me about the canal when I was in middle school, matter of facts I went on a school trip to the canal and I got to tell you first 9 min of this video I learn more about the canal than I did all 14 years I lived there, all I knew about it was how the boats pass through it.

I never connected the idea that raising those water gates would have a fresh water cost. Crazy that theyre just dumping drinking water by the millions of gallons for every single ship that goes through.

My information is that the original engineers that planned the old Panama Canal, built reservoirs for the full locks to pump their water to when then wanted to lower a ship. The new "SmartAss" Panamax Canal builders neglected to build the reservoirs and chose to flush the receding locks into the ocean. Now they are scrambling to build the additional reservoirs.

Not to mention that traveling around Cape Horn takes you through some of the most turbulent ocean on the planet.

This february in Los Angeles, it was one of the wettest ever recorded. I live in the deserts of Southern California, and we received two and a half times our normal february rainfall. And it's not done raining.

Quick correction… As someone who has actually been through the Panama Canal… The water is not pumped. There are not any pumps involved, unless there are pumps in the new section. The original locks use gravity only. I do not know if that is the case for the new locks, but I would imagine so.

The panama canal could be re-built to double the number of ships passing through using the same amount of water. Currently, the locks can only be run in one direction at a time so when ships are going up, the level of the locks are changed with no ship in the lock when the level is lowered. If the locks were separated by a small lake, big enough for two ships to pass they could run ships in both directions simultaneously so that the locks never changed level without a ship in the lock, doubling the throughput without using any more water. BTW, the reason they are limiting the cargo on the ships has nothing to do with the amount of water used, the same amount of water is used to change the level of the locks when a fully loaded ship is in the locks, or completely empty. The reason for reducing the cargo is to prevent the ships from running aground. The lower level of the lake means the channel is shallower, and the ships must have a shallower draft.

It's interesting that you have overlooked the Panama Railway which has been operational for decades carrying containers between the two ports of the canal. Expansion and upgrade could also increase the carrying capacity of the "fifth" alternative.

Everything on this channel keep blowing my mind.

Not to mention Cape Horn is one of the most dangerous passages that exists

Fun fact, Costa Rica had a trans-oceanic railway network connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic via trains, but it was discontinued in the 90´s for "financial" reasons and now the train only runs in the central valley area where 60% of Costa Rica´s population lives, leaving the rest of the line in disrepair. To be honest, its shocking that the government is not seriously proposing fixing the rail line as a possible proyect, specially with the current events :(

If the goal is to get shipping containers from coast to coast, why would you build roads for trucks instead of rails for trains? Each truck can only move 1 or two containers where the trains can move hundreds. Trucks are for distribution from arteries not the arteries of travel themselves. Plus, since there would be very few stops for the train, it would be one of the best candidates for high speed rail.

Just one word: Zeppelins.

In my opinion the easiest thing to do is just to build reservoirs along the locks. This is what the (admittedly smaller) locks on the Rhein-Main-Donau Kanal in Germany do. Since they don't have much water entering the canal at its highest point when a ship wants to go down through a lock they simply pump all the water into a concrete tank. When a ship wants to go back up they pump the water back up into the lock. It uses basically zero water and solves the problem.

Was just reading recently that the El Niño is actually in the process of already transitioning back to a La Niña, which is definitely much quicker than people were expecting for how strong this El Niño seemed to be

As an engineer, I would propose that the water from the final lock be pumped back up to the lake, rather than dumped into the ocean. Can pumps be built with that capacity? Can Panama afford the cost of it?

Thanks for these very high quality video you make for us!