What this does not show (well) is that sea level on the Pacific side is different from sea level on the Gulf of Mexico side; Pacific is higher IIRC. A "sea level" canal would have a ferocious current in it.
Posted on 12/08/2023 9:58:25 AM PST by texas booster
The worsening bottlenecks at the drought-stricken Panama Canal are pushing at least one US diesel shipper to sail around the tip of South America en route to Chile for the first time since 2020.
The vessel Green Sky is hauling ultra-low sulfur diesel loaded at Citgo Petroleum Corp.’s Clifton Ridge terminal in Louisiana to Valparaiso, Chile, according to Bloomberg vessel tracking and Kpler. Rather than traversing through Panama, the vessel is headed down the eastern coast of South America toward the Strait of Magellan, the first such voyage for a cargo of Gulf Coast diesel since 2020, according to Kpler.
The journey is expected to take about a week longer than it would via the canal at a time when freight rates are near record highs.
The cost to haul fuel from the US Gulf Coast to Chile surged to a record $4.6 million per shipment in late November, according to data from Argus Media. That’s more than twice what it cost at the beginning of the year. Freight rates have surged as a historic drought left water levels in the Panama Canal so low that authorities have curtailed traffic, creating huge, prolonged delays.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
All of this chaos on the Panama Canal, even after China doubled the size of the canal without adding additional lakes.
Who knew that engineers back in the early 1900’s could do math and engineering!
This is all caused by Jimmmmy Carter selling the Canal to the Chinese.
This would t be a problem if we had used nukes to directly connect the gulf of Mexico with the Pacific boy blowing and ocean level gap through Panama.
Why don’t they just use the Norhtwest Passage that man-made climate change has opened? / sarc
I’m confused. How can the Panama Canal have such low water levels when the sea levels are supposedly rising higher than ever from global warmageddon or sumthin’?
Because science, or global warming, or climate change, or melting icebergs, or something..
The level of the fresh water lakes has nothing to do with the sea level.
I believe the canal uses fresh water from lakes and reservoirs to maintain levels.
To be the Devil’s Advocate here, they are two different things. The water levels used in the canal and lock systems are fresh water (they don’t use seawater) may indeed come into play if they are too low.
Of course, they will say it is caused by global warming induced drought. To them, everything is.
Interesting. Even with the canal connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean?
What fewer people know is that the Red Chinese doubled the carrying capacity of the Canal, without doubling its water supply. Apparently, the Chinese didn't realize that using water faster than it is replaced will cause problems.
What this does not show (well) is that sea level on the Pacific side is different from sea level on the Gulf of Mexico side; Pacific is higher IIRC. A "sea level" canal would have a ferocious current in it.
I think I read that the parallel canal exhausted the previous amount of water on hand. Having two canals with the same amount of lake water does not work, apparently.
Sounds stupid, if this is what happened with the Chicoms.
Exactly.
Was there a price?
It has occurred to me that perhaps the ChiComs screwed up the Panama Canal deliberately ...
“This is all caused by Jimmmmy Carter selling the Canal to the Chinese.”
Yep, the bad decisions by almost every RAT president since Woodrow Wilson come back to haunt us.
Sounds like either the ChiComs are doing a lousy job of managing the former American canal, or they are trying to choke off traffic prior to an attack on the Republic of China.
The middle of the canal is much higher than either end. Ships have to go up and down 85 feet to transit. They’d need to add a lot of huge pumps to get seawater to the top.
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