Panama Canal at Crossroads

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Wednesday, January 7, 2004 | NEIL KING JR.

[presidio9]

How many Chinese bras -- and televisions and Barbie dolls and VCRs -- can fit through the Panama Canal?

It's a question bedeviling canal authorities and many huge U.S. retailers who are betting on the waterway to get goods from Asia to the East Coast. Booming Chinese exports, and the increasing popularity of the all-water route from Asia to the Atlantic seaboard, made 2003 the busiest and most profitable year in the canal's 90-year history.

[Atlas Sneezed]

While challenging, at least building new locks side-by-side with the existing ones is rather doable, compared to the monumantal task of greatly enlarging the channel and cut, which one doubts could even be achieved with modern expectations of worker safety. Bigger ships could presumably fit through the existing channels. From a recent transit, I recall that there was amply space to add locks at each of the three sets. Not trivial, but not monumental.

There is nothing inherently difficult about making locks somewhat wider or longer.

[Atlas Sneezed]

And while I understand that added lock usage by new locks would deplete the lake (hopefully consuming no more of the water that is now spilled over the dams), I do not see how flooding farms would add to the finite drainage basin that provides the needed water to operate the locks. Even raising the lake level would not increase the basin, which is defined by the ridges encompassing it.

[Atlas Sneezed]

A French-Belgian consortium is crafting blueprints...

Well, that's ominous!

---

Don't worry, the US can come in a generation after they fail, and make it work.

[Paul Ross]

For many retailers, the canal is now the best way to get goods from China to East Coast population centers, and the ports are making huge investments to absorb the increased traffic. Traffic back to Asia is even weightier, largely because of the preponderance of raw materials such as wood and scrap metal.

Check this out. The Great Sucking Sound just became a HURRICANE. Classic signs of the U.S. being made into a Third World Bananna Republic. And the Communists in Bejing are laughing all the way to the bank.

[presidio9]

Estimates run as high as 30,000 lives lost during original construction (that includes the 20,000 during the initial French debacle). Of course, we are better able to deal with malaria now, so contemporary numbers would not approach anywhere near that.

[taxcontrol]

I'm of the opinion that they would be better served by cutting a canal from Gulfo de los Mosquitos to Golfo de Chiriqui. Between the cities of Santiago and David.

This would need to be a complete "sea level" cut meaning that the canal would not be the series of locks that the current system relies upon.

Waste from the cut could be used to form more islands and/or as aggregate for use in concrete for the walls.

[presidio9]

What is the total milage between the two points?

[glorgau]

$8 billion? Such a bargain!

That is far cheaper than the Big Dig in Boston which ended up costing $14.6 billion.

[backhoe]

Unresolved Questions- the Panama canal, good, bad, or a waiting disaster?--thread II

[Eric in the Ozarks]

"post-Panamax" ships...
What is the max length and width of ships going thru the Canal today ?

[Alberta's Child]

What this article fails to point out is that the Panama Canal is facing a number of other issues above and beyond the size limitation for ships using it.

First and foremost is the fact that the Panama Canal was most attractive as a shipping route to the East Coast when Asia's manufacturing was strongest in places like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. As manufacturing in Asia has gradually moved to places like Indonesia, India, and Malaysia, the preferred route to the East Coast became the Suez Canal. Singapore is almost exactly equidistant from New York to the east and west, and therefore there would generally not be much of a difference in shipping costs via either route.

However, the Panama Canal route would have two major disadvantages versus the Suez Canal route even if there were no limit on the size of ships in either Canal:

1. The Suez is a "flat canal," while the Panama Canal contains a series of locks that reduce the operating efficiency of the canal system. As a result, transit times are faster through the Suez then the Panama.

2. The trans-Suez route to the East Coast a tremendous advantage over the Pacific/Panama route because a waterborne carrier can have its ships make port calls at two major consumer markets (Western Europe and the Eastern U.S.) instead of just one.

Something worth noting here is that when it comes to freight transportation to, from, and within the United States, all carriers and modes are in a "win-win" situation because the level of consumer activity here is growing so rapidly. What this means is that the Panama Canal route is not going to "take away" any shipping from the Suez route, or vice versa. Ocean-going traffic along both routes is going to continue to grow over time -- any improvements at either canal are simply going to make one of them grow faster than the other.

[Alberta's Child]

I may be wrong about this, but the figures 450 meters (length) and 55 meters (beam) come to mind for some reason. I'll do some research on this.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

1476 feet long X 180 feet wide. That's beamy !

[Alberta's Child]

Actually, I was way off on those figures. According to this site, the maximum ship size is 965 ft. in length and 106 ft. in width.

Match Shipping Management

[Atlas Sneezed]

What is the max length and width of ships going thru the Canal today ?

---

A little over 100 feet wide, and about 1000 feet long.

[stationkeeper]

965'l x 115'w.........newest generation container ships are 1150'l x 147'w.....with bigger ones being considered.

Ships of this size are currently restricted to the Pacific only trades or Trans-Suez trades between Asia/Europe/East Coast U.S.A