Nicaragua Gives Chinese Firm Contract To Build Alternative To Panama Canal

McGruber writes with this news from late last week: "The Guardian is reporting that Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications. The new route will be a higher-capacity alternative to the 99-year-old Panama Canal, which is currently being widened at the cost of $5.2bn. Last year, the Nicaraguan government noted that the new canal should be able to allow passage for mega-container ships with a dead weight of up to 250,000 tonnes. This is more than double the size of the vessels that will be able to pass through the Panama Canal after its expansion, it said."

Comments

Finally

[wcrowe]

I've been waiting to hear about this for years. It should be quite a project. Wikipedia has a map for those interested.

Re:Short on details

[phantomfive]

Rubbish. Melting all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica would raise the global sea level a few inches at best.

Woah, that's definitely not true. Melting all the arctic ice would not change the global sea level, because it's all floating. But melting Greenland ice would change the sea levels by 20 feet, because the ice is all supported by land. Same with Antarctica (which holds 70% of the world's fresh water): it's supported by land, so if it all melted, ocean levels would rise 60 meters.

The only reason no one worries about this scenario (they used to, see Waterworld), is because it's extremely unlikely Antarctica will melt completely. Same with Greenland, but if either one begins to melt due to global warming, you can be sure the remaining contrarian scientists will hop on board with a program to stop CO2 emissions. Lomborg will change his opinion quickly.