Why the Panama Canal is Dying

Select video clips courtesy of Getty Images

Select video clips courtesy of the AP Archive

Special thanks to MapTiler, OpenStreetMap Contributors, and GEOlayers

[baahcusegamer]

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

[vvolfbelorven]

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.

[JayceeBoucher-lw]

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.

[jorgeyipzhong]

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.

[zestylemn]

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.

[djohnson]

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.

[douglaspeale]

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.

[kevinschellhase]

Just some shop talk: I appreciate that you put the sponsorship at the end. I think this makes it more effective - your whole video gets watched without losing as many viewers, and we're left with the sponsorship in mind at the end. It looks like a good service too. Nice production!

[I_am_somebody_]

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 :(

[POLARTTYRTM]

Worth mentioning that the canal is useful and can save millions of $ (and many, many lives of crew members) because Cape Horn is the most dangerous and vioent stretch of ocean on the planet. Many ships that go through there face unreal waves (sometimes surpassing 15-20 meters of height) that travel very fast and are incredibly steep that badly damage the ships and their cargo if they are container carriers, without mentioning the enormous weight that the ice adds to them, as water is sprayed by the waves and immediately frozen all throughout the ships, making them very unstable and prone to sinking.

The clash of the currents from the Southern Ocean with the South Atlantic combined with the immensely powerful winds create some of the most unique and destructive waves on the planet.

Once you go in, you can't turn around, you simply have to proceed. The weather can go from extremely bad and dangerous to straight up deadly in a matter of minutes with no warnings.

The horrific stories that many seafarers have to tell about that passage are heart wrenching to say the least, many of them thought they wouldn't make it out alive because the conditions were just SO bad.

So yeah, it is a very dangerous place to go through, you really do NOT want to go through that passage unless you absolutely have to.

[samheldmann]

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.

[billbruff]

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.

[jacquesbonhomme]

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

[nucleargandhi]

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

[LettuceJuice]

Is it just me or does the audio sound slightly off this video?

[janicebartmess]

Really great information and excellent delivery. I feel like I definitely know a lot more about today's world..economy trade and international current affairs as well as geography and climate. Thanks so much!

[Benson_aka_devils_advocate_]

Going through the Drake Passage is not only longer, its way, way more likely to sink your ship. There's a reason it was feared by mariners of past.

[FEPower]

When you are describing how the locks work there are no pumps, only valves. The valves are opened from the higher lock and water flows due to gravity to the lower chamber and stops itself when they reach equilibrium.

[davidcollinsjr]

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.

[kurtcostarica]

As commented above, no water is pumped in the Panama Canal, it's all gravity fed.
The new set of locks are hugely larger that the original set, to take much larger ships, but they use 7% less water. 60% of the water in the new locks is reutilized and never leaves the system.
When talking about all of the different projects in other countries, what you didn't mention in the video is that Panama has two Canals; one wet and one dry. The Dry Canal is a very efficient container cargo train that joins the ports on the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea (there is no Atlantic in Central America).
The Dry Canal train transports goods across the 80 km isthmus much faster than any of the options in other countries, and has been running for many years, so all the logistics and other issues are well-proven.
To increase the water capacity of the lakes, Panama is looking at options for more reservoirs.
As mentioned in the video, the vast majority of the population of Panama is near the Canal, and the sites of proposed dams and lakes are in low population density areas.