The Panama Canal announced Saturday it will reduce the maximum number of ships travelling the waterway to 31 per day, from 32 in August, due to a drought that has reduced the supply of fresh water needed to operate the locks.
That compares to daily averages of 36 to 38 ships per day under normal operation.
Nine ships per day will be allowed to use the new, bigger NeoPanamax locks and 22 per day will be handled through the older Panamax locks.
Why do they need to use fresh water to fill the locks? I get that pumping salt water may come with a bit more maintenance but it just seems like a waste to use all that fresh water.
The middle part of the canal is 26 meters above sea level, and the canal is way too big for them to pump sea water into it.
This image kinda illustrates it
The canal is actually larger than I thought.
The canal traverses a fresh water lake at the middle
As I understand it, canal locks don’t pump water at all.
When you’re going downhill, you allow the higher water to slowly drain out of the lock, thus lowering you to the lower level
When you’re going uphill, you allow the higher water to slowly drain into the lock, thus raising you to the higher level.
In both directions the water is always flowing from high to low.
Because the canal is connected to Gatun Lake, a freshwater lake.
Energy. It takes a lot of energy to get water that high.
like all old century inventions, the thing isn’t sustainable since fresh water is finite, and the next thing close to regenerating those fresh reserves is energy-hungry desalination. might as well adress the problem head-on and power the canal with a power plant to actively fill the locks with sea water…but since its run by a third world country, i doubt they would do anything about it and instead act complacent and let things run their course
WTF are you on about?
All locks work the same way as these ones, even the most modern locks in the US.
They’re not “powered” by fresh water, they’re using the normal flow of water, harnessed by valve systems, to either allow water to accumulate in the chamber or prevent that accumulation, depending on what they’re trying to achieve. The only energy consumed is a relatively small amount of electricity to power the hydraulics that open and close the valves and the lock gates themselves. Everything else is gravity.
tbh i am not responsible for what u did understand. ur mind, ur rules. i hate to repeat myself but what i meant is that using fresh water to fill the locks passively using gravity albeit it is tempting it is in fact a waste of fresh water. so saving fresh water must be a priority and instead we could actively fill the locks using sea water, but at an energy cost, yet it is durable since energy is abundant (especially clean forms of thereof). tbh i am waiting on the day when i can mute notifications of replies to my comments, such a distraction really…
You should not comment on topics you don’t understand because you sound really, really dumb.
Having traversed the Panama Canal several times in the last 15 years, Pauli’s quote “Das is nicht einmal falsch” comes to mind.
Nothing is infinite. But fresh water is renewable, which means it can be used sustainably.
It’s to keep it out of the hands of Nestlé