Panama Canal Low Water 2

So the yahoo article ignores the doubling of the canal capacity in 2016. Silly hitpiece. There are two issues, short term January-July (it rains in the latter half of the calendar year)


and the pressure on the long term storage. The population has doubled in the last 35 years, have they doubled the water storage?


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

Which is it, 20 year drought or el Nino? An el Nino doesn't last that long.

And the article blaims it all on the US. If that is correct, the solution is easy. Force all the Chinese shipping to the East Coast to go another way. The Chinese junk is too cheap, anyway. A bit extra for shipping is a small price to pay to save the Canal for better uses.

From the same "journalist:

Linked Article

Oh, spare me

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

Gatun Lake is artificial. Maybe we should drain it and restore the natural habitat.

Panama Canal water levels at historic lows, restrictions to remain... I guess if you ship from China, you don't need the Panama Canal.

"The Panama Canal's water levels have not recovered enough as the end of the rainy season approaches and limits on daily transit and vessel draft will stay in place for the rest of the year and throughout 2024, the waterway's authority said on Tuesday.

The restrictions, implemented earlier this year to conserve water amid prolonged drought, triggered a backlog of ships waiting to pass the key global waterway, which handles an estimated 5% of world trade, contributing to more expensive freight costs ahead of the approaching Christmas season.

The bottleneck at the canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans has eased about 20% since last week, but waiting times to transit the waterway doubled last month from July in some vessel categories, while many ship owners have opted for alternate routes to avoid costly delivery delays."


-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

I don't know if its climate change or the canal enlargement project that is causing this. Or is it both. I kind of suspect it is the effects of canal enlargement, but climate change seems to be getting the blame. Is it an engineering bust, or not? Is this a temporary situation, or will it get better, or worse.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

We'll have to wait and find out... it's a waiting game.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

There must be some sort of pumping system to preserve water or simply pump out the lock to the higher side, Possibly using some of the basins to even of the flow a bit?

In the early days of canals in the UK, as they became popular, some canals needed to pump water back up to the summit section in summer. But then Energy was cheap.

There are some hydro turbines at that lake?

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

LittleInch said:

There must be some sort of pumping system to preserve water or simply pump out the lock to the higher side,

Click to expand...

Nope.

The new locks are less wasteful than the old, but nope.

dik,
Read the original 'Technical Details' posted by 1503-44. It states that "The growth in usage of the Panama Canal over the past few years has been almost entirely driven by increased US imports from China passing through the canal en route to ports on the US East and Gulf Coasts." So without this traffic, the US would be just fine, but I suppose Panama would not be too happy.

Mint - I know there isn't now, but the question was whether there would need to be ones in the future. It's a huge amount of water for sure, but then big problems generate big solutions...

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

Looking at Greg's chart, I kind of think it's a combination of climate (change or severe El Niño).
The chart seems to show the high and low rainfall rates diverging, which would also tend make higher peaks and lower troughs in the amount of accumulated rainfall.

Yearly rainfall for Panama is here.

Low was 225cm, high 285cm Only 25% variation over the historic record. The variation around the average of all is only about +/-10% and I don't see any real profound trend in the yearly amounts in recent years. Looks like that's pretty much holding at typical levels. Panama's problem has always been extreme variations between wet and dry seasons. The Chagres River has one of the highest seasonal flow rate changes in the world. At one time i think it was some 300 m3/s to 3000 m3/s. (I'll try to confirm that.) I think that both the rainfall intensities are higher and the dry periods are even drier than before. It's hard to tell if the water saving features of the expanded canal are adequate enough to compensate for the more extreme dry periods. The increased system outages would lead to a negative conclusion there, but I suppose without hard data on how much water is being saved and the probable increased draw for use by local populations, its difficult to get any further than that.



--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

Reduction in operations


Fresh water premium


--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

Thanks hokie... I did. That's why my reference to China. There is, however, a bit of a problem, hence the delays.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

There was talk about Mexico reopening a railroad from Pacific to the Gulf, but then Panama already has a railroad that follows the cannel. It is not most a tourist railroad.
Maybe better uses of resources is better than assume one resource can do it all.

I could say the same for the Suez cannel.

The Panama canal is driven on gravity fall of water, so the power requirements to operate are minimized, which makes it very attractive. No pumping solution seems likely to be usable for the change in height required. Competition by overland systems has to overcome that advantage. There is that pesky range of mountains along much of the west coast of the Americas that leaves the Panama canal in a superior position.

Transferring cargo onto barges that fill the locks more completely might be a better solution than transferring cargo to trains. More hull in the lock means less water to fill it.

The volume of water consumed lifting the navigable volume is constant regardless of what is floating in the navigable volume.
The volume of water consumed is a direct function of the number of cycles (IE Traffic).
Attempting to recover water runs the risk of pumping seawater into the pond.


A Lift Lock would not consume the lifting volume, but it still takes energy to lift the volume. Some energy can be recovered by balancing 2 lifts against each other. Might be useful for small vessels up to say 3000 tons displacement.

Peterborough Lift Lock #21

They could recycle the water, 200000 tonnes at 26m, that's about 14 MWh per ship, which takes 11 hours, so call it a 1MW power cost per ship while it is in the canal. 50 ships a day. 25 MW That's a tiny power station.
It's no good blathering on about climate change, the rainfall hasn't changed significantly in 100 years.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376