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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."
The story is short on details, the Spanish language op ed referred to in TFA indicates the canal would run through Lake Nicaragua. This route has been considered since before the US-dug canal through Panama. I could potentially be a sea-level canal, which would be a major plus, but which would radically alter the Lake. Either way, it'd be a big deal for shipping and save thousands of miles and tons of fuel for ships bigger than whatever they're calling the latest "Panamax." It seems to me the ports of New Orleans and Mobile in the US would benefit, perhaps also Atlantic ports in Europe.
I am not a crackpot.
I've been waiting to hear about this for years. It should be quite a project. Wikipedia has a map for those interested.
Proverbs 21:19
China is already losing manufacturing jobs
Africa and the middle east is going to be the new frontier for low cost manufacturing
It's a shame China didn't consult with you first then. You could have saved them a lot of trouble by telling them it was stupid. So in order to allow super tankers, which are too big for the Panama Canal, where would have built an additional, wider canal?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
not to mention how stupid it is to completely cut your country in half.
Yeah, that MIssisippi river forces people to ride thousands of miles further to take their horses from Mississippi to Texas. Oh wait, they've been building bridges and fording rivers since before the colonial era?
Sure, it is a longer route than Panama, but I suspect the shipping volumes are large enough that it might be profitable. China is likely viewing this strategically - they've been taking the long view far more than the US in recent years, with the exceptions of their environmental policy and the US willingness to invest in blowing things up.
Look at a map of Nicaragua. It's at least twice if not 3x as wide as Panama at its thinnest point. What an unbelievably stupid idea, not to mention how stupid it is to completely cut your country in half.
In the US, our country is "completely cut in half" by a naturally occurring canal, if you will. We've used a technologies known as the "bridge" and "ferry" to deal with that. Nicaragua could probably do the same.
Also note that part of that distance through Nicaragua is already water: Lake Nicaragua. Every plan ever for a canal through that region -- going back to the 19th century -- has included the lake in the route.
I am not a crackpot.
If it only takes them a hundred years and a trillion dollars it'll be a miracle. And here's a tip: bring in the French first. After they fail everyone will want to help you out because apparently nothing's more satisfying than beating the French at something.
You know, it's a hell of a lot easier to carve a relatively flat channel over a long distance than it is to build lock after lock and to maintain all those pumps...
And as for cutting one's country in half, that's what bridges and tunnels are for.
I don't think that the Chinese will succeed for the same reasons why the French and other European nations didn't succeed initially in Panama. The Panama canal took a national interest to construct, not a corporate interest, and was driven in large part by our nation having two coasts with a whole lot of distance in between, and by our "Manifest Destiny" doctrine. Simple economic interests operated by a corporation may not be able to pull it off, especially if that corporation is there only for that purpose, as problems along the way will make it very hard to raise capital when investors don't think that their investment will pay off.
If they do manage to pull it off, great! There will be uses for the Panama Canal even if it receives less traffic than the new one, decades from now when it's finished.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I have not even RTFA yet, but I believe I've put more thought into this issue than you have. I've been to Panama and watched the canal operate, and I have some thoughts on this issue which have persisted since. First, the Panama canal is driven by fresh water which is then thrown away. The redesign reuses a portion of the water (a third, I think) so that they can make more runs per day, not so that they can save any water. There are literally people dying on this planet for lack of fresh water and this is just used as hydraulic fluid and then thrown into the ocean while ships pass by. Everything is wrong with this.
If its going to take 5.2 billion to widen the Panama canal, how much will it cost to build a new one across a country more than twice the width of Panama? More than $40 billion I think.
It's cheaper to dig a canal than to widen one, because you're going to be digging through a bunch of dry land with no special engineering issues. Then you knock the ends out. It's cheaper still if they import a bunch of Chinese slave labor.
Also the article says the aim is to "weaken US dominance over the key shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans." The Panama canal is owned by Panama. Has been since 1999.
And Panama is 0wned by the USA. Has been since 1989.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, a truly massive freshwater lake is about to be flooded with salt water. What about all the fish/creatures/plants that live there?
You realise if the pull this off technically Costa Rica will become an island.
I didn't know Chinese super tankers came down the Mississippi River daily, thus making it ungodly expensive to create bridges high enough to let them pass under and effectively turning the average distance between bridges to 10x what it would be if only smaller boats passed down it. That never came up in Huck Finn apparently.
20cm over hundreds of miles is not significant. You'd have more run down from surrounding hills adding to the water level than the inflow of one of the oceans. In essence, you'd have a river that would flow both ways. You probably still want locks though, if only to make sure that you don't have to dig your canal incredibly deep. It may be feasible to build the channel (mostly) at sea level, but there may still be some areas where placing a lock would save you so much money in digging that you can't ever get that back in fares.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
A china that is committed to trading with the world is not waging war. This is about shipping routes from China to Europe bypassing unstable africa and an even more unstable middle east. Its also about ships such as the maersk Triple E class 165,000 tons which is too big for any US port to handle but can be easily handled by ports in china and europe. This would shock americans but the Chinese of 700 years had ships bigger than any in Europe that could travel farther and were more advanced with magnetic compasses and watertight compartments.
David Lee Roth is confused.
We go to all that trouble to attempt an overthrow of the Nicaraguan government all through the 80's, and THIS is how they say thanks!
Do you have any idea how much money we spent sending your people to college, you ungrateful bastards?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I'm sure that Panama didn't consider that either when they started their current project to widen the existing Panama canal.
Nicaragua apparently doesn't even have a paved road that stretches from one coast to the other. I'm not sure how much of an issue it would be to build a $40b canal that has a few tall bridges, or those new fangled draw bridges every so often to handle what must be a huge amount of traffic in the area.
Look at a map of Nicaragua.
You first, since it's clear you didn't actually look at a detailed map.
If you look at an actual map of Nicaragua, what you will see is that there is a gigantic body of water called Lake Nicaragua that covers about half the width of the country. Look a little harder and you'll see a series of major rivers connecting Lake Nicaragua (which sits mostly on the western part of the country) with the Caribbean Sea to the east. As a result, any of the canals that have ever been proposed in Nicaragua make use of the existing rivers and the lake for the majority of the trip, meaning that the only place they need to build an artificial canal would be for the 10km-ish stretch between the western edge of Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. They also have to add locks and likely do some dredging with one of the current rivers, but that's far less costly than having to do it all from scratch.
Also, the US has really suffered all of these years due to its being cut in half by the Mississippi, so I can see why you're concerned about what this might do to Nicaragua. It's a good thing those rivers and the lake I just mentioned don't already span the width of the country. I'm sure that turning them into a canal system would really harm the country.
Multiple comments...
As fustakrakich says, no pumps needed. Need more water in the lock, get it from the higher water level side. Need less, give it to the lower water level side. As a kid, we went to a fishing camp along the Trent Waterway system in Ontario, Ca. I've had the now-rare experience of walking in circles, pushing the handles that operated the valves and doors of the locks. At that time it was fully manual, these days it's all electric. As for technology, I've also been on and to the Peterborough lift-locks, where the boats ride in pans on hydraulic rams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_Lift_Lock But the thing I hope to see someday is the Falkirk Wheel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel
Yes, I'm a bit of a lock-junkie.
As for "succeed", China is embarking on a massive "manifest destiny" kick of their own, right now. I'll be curious to see what "Internet Time" does to that, as well as their changing demographics and internal tendency to corruption. It will be interesting to see how well they can keep their long-term focus with those other factors at work. (I'll agree that without them, China has been pretty good at long-term.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The Chinese have to build it within 6 years or they lose the concession. The route they are using is the same as the original route that the US was going to use way back when, before the French decided they had lost too many workers to malaria in Panama and the US started funding Panamanian rebels.
Newer lock systems that are designed to reuse water are going to need pumps to move water in/out of the storage basins. Without the water re-use, the Panama canal would not have enough annual rainfall to move those post-Panamax ships. With the water re-use concept, moving a post-Panamax ship through the locks takes about the same amount of water as the current locks do with Panamax ships.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Like iOS, they get to set the price to move the goods around.
I'm pretty sure that you can just 'sideload' through the Strait of Magellan if you feel like it.
It's not like they're closing the Panama Canal once the Chinese build this. The new canal costs too much, people will just keep going through the old canal (tough luck for those who invested in ships too large to go through the old canal, but doing all those thousands of km through the end of South America isn't less expensive either).
I don't think the significance of this development is so much commercial as it is geo-political. Not that long ago, if the Soviets had done this, it would have caused a major shit-storm. This is a subtle but deliberate and clever provocation on part of the Chinese since they are effectively invading what the USA has regarded as it's 'sphere of influence' for about 200 years without firing carrying a single gun but still doing something of considerable military significance. I'm not sure what the PRC is trying to achieve here but between the recent hacker attacks, this and a whole lot of other pinpricks the PRC is poking a sleeping Grizzly with a stick. I'll actually be surprised if this won't eventually lead to some sort of US counter-provocation. Traditionally this would have taken the form of a couple of US carrier group steaming through the Taiwan Strait with full brouhaha and unofficial orders to Navy pilots to deliberately interpret the limits of PRC airspace rather loosely. This would then have been followed by the US congress approving a massive package of arms sales to Taiwan. Who the hell knows, perhaps approval of F-35 stealth fighter sales to Taiwan has been deliberately kept in reserve for just such an occasion?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
So who's going to go ballistic over the loss of a monopoly?
Let's wait and see how long it takes them to actually build the damn thing, and at what cost. Go look at a map.
If you take that look, be sure to look closely. The plan is to utilize Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River, which connects it to the Caribbean. That leaves only 10 km of completely new canal (from Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific), although the San Juan River also needs upgrades to make it navigable for larger ships. This is not a new idea, nor an implausible one - see the Wikipedia article.
Stephan
A Ug, a R, a Cin: Nicaragua!
What's to stop Costa Rica or Columbia joining in?
1. Mountains
2. Water to operate the locks to get over those mountains.
Panama and Nicaragua both have relatively low hills/mountains, and large lakes at sufficient altitude to supply water for the locks.
Costa Rica and Colombia do not.
A little over three decades ago, I was a young Marine, and spent several months in Panama. We provided security for the Gatun dam and locks. It was very interesting to watch the ships step up and down through the locks. We conducted patrols in the surrounding rainforest. It was the most beautiful forest I have ever seen. There were trees almost as big as sequoias, and spots where the canopy were so dense that it was almost dark on the forest floor. The birds, butterflies and flowers all had dazzling colors. But it seemed like everything had thorns or some goo that would blister skin, and there were lots of mosquitoes, leeches, and other bloodsucking bugs.
Of course China is being strategic. I live in Costa Rica, where Xi Jinping just visited before going to the US, and right next to Nicaragua. China has been very generous to these small latin countries, donating stadiums, highways and bridges. Like the US used to do back in the bad old days. The US nowadays though only threatens. Threatens will sanctions, threatens with cutting aid programs, etc. Guess who is popular and who isn't in latin America now? China has pretty much bought Africa and S. America. I wonder where the US seeks to expand its economy in the future - oh yeah, they don't make anything anymore anyway.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
From the Wiki: ... Project Chariot, which would have used several hydrogen bombs to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska. It was never carried out due to concerns for the native populations and the fact that there was little potential use for the harbor to justify its risk and expense....
Government Man: "We're going to build a new harbor for you!"
Inuit: "No want harbor. Want seals"
GM: "Look, this harbor will be really neat. It will be a big hole in the ground next to the sea where ships can park..."
I: "No want harbor. Want seals"
GM: "...and at night it will glow faintly, so that the ships can find their way in...."
I: "Any seals in harbor?"
GM: "No, no seals. But there will be lots of sailors. And bars..."
I: "No want harbor. Want seals"
GM: " If you don't stop saying that, we won't give you anything at all!"
I: "No want anything. Except seals. You got seals?"
GM: "Oh, for God's sake! Come on, Martin, lets go and blow up an island in the Pacific instead. The weather's better there, anyway..."
They need this canal to move their planned mega aircraft carriers into the Atlantic.
Have gnu, will travel.
Africa and the Middle East won't be taking many manufacturing jobs until they can stop being in a state of constant war. If your factory gets blown up, it really doesn't matter how cheap the labor is.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
The US government spent $1.3 billion in Latin America in 2010. That's not counting the billions spent by a myriad of humanitarian organizations. Regardless, I don't think you should be judging countries based on their handouts. If only you were so critical of your own productivity and politics.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
All the water used for the locks was heading towards the ocean to start with. They dammed the Chagras River (which empties into the ocean) to form Gatun Lake, and they release the water from there as needed. They aren't 'wasting' water, the are just delaying it's trip to the ocean. Or is your view that every undammed waterway on the planet is a 'waste' of water?
Well, it might be time for you to invest in my subprime factories! On a larger scale, you can actually tolerate a steady stream of factories blowing up, as long as enough of them turn a constant rent... And the children there will work for a carrot a day!
FCKGW 09F9 42
According to the developer's website, it will not use the San Juan River.
Lake Nicaragua is freshwater, though. I can't see using it without dramatic environmental impact on that lake.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Most countries don't have paved roads (certainly not larger than a 2 lane country road) that run their length or width. Manaus, a major Brazilian port is only accessible by air and sea for most of the year (rainy season). The concept of a national highway system outside of the US and Europe is virtually unknown.
I missed my plane out of Colombia last year due to a mudslide on the largest road between the two largest cities (8 million and 3 million) in the country, it was one lane in each direction. This is pretty common...
moox. for a new generation.
Well as far as the Atlantic coast's concerned, DC's about as close to Lake Erie as you can get in US territory, and it hardly seems a good idea to go via Lake Ontario and mess up the tourist trade at Niagara. But that leaves a huge expanse of dry land to cross between Lake Superior and Seattle.
How about instead we suggest to the ultraneocons that a canal along the Mexican border, would provide an easily defended barrier against illegal immigration.
Then we'd all get to laugh when it was revealed that the contractors raking it in on the public purse were cutting corners and employing illegal immigrant labour....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I work for a ship owner and order my vessels to transit via Panama quite often. To transit one of our smaller vessels (~30,000 DWT) it costs ~USD$90,000.00 and is one of the major costs calculated on our voyages, especially on a bad economic market. Despite the fact that ship owners are faced with a bad market, the PCA (Panama Canal Administration) keeps needlessly inflating the costs to transit at least once or twice per year. Our larger vessels can easily cost ~USD$200,000.00 and more to transit. The industry has long been awaiting some competition to mitigate these over-inflated costs and it is high time it materialised.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. - Albert Einstein
"We spent no where near 1 trillion dollars on stimulus. "
The federal government cranked up spending by 18% between 2008 and 2009. This was to "stimulate" the economy after the housing crash. This wasn't a one time thing where they immediately cut spending back to previous levels. That spending has continued year after year right up to the present. We've spent several trillion on "stimulus" and it hasn't worked.
The Atlantic-side digging will likely be through the Indio Maiz Biological Preserve. I imagine there will be some energetic discussion over that.
It will work as well for them as it did for their predecessors.
The west is more or less done dumping money into corrupt 3rd world hell holes. China will also get its fingers burned, they will learn. Africa is like the old Steve Jackson game 'Illuminati', future deals are not enforceable. They've all learned the; Revolution! All deals are off. Shuffle.
China didn't have any capital to invest when the rest of the worlds capital learned that the only thing worth owning in Africa is a government. Even then, it's marginal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So China is the good guy for previously giving nothing, then giving something. But the U.S. is the bad guy for previously giving something, but considering giving less?
Your problem is you're assuming you're entitled to the aid the U.S. is already giving, and thus you value current U.S. contribution at zero and see a reduction in contribution as a negative (a threat). You need to compare from an equal basis - assume you're entitled to zero aid and measure any contribution as a positive.
I hate to break the news to you, but aid from ANYONE is given with strings attached.
If you think China is building canals just because they want to help South America, they want market access and they care, you haven't learned much from history.
Countries have ALWAYS been interested in violating the sovereignty of their neighbors.
The only reason no one worries about this scenario (they used to, see Waterworld)
Sorry but in Waterworld there was no land except for the peak of Mount Everest. This represents a sea level rise of ~8km which is two orders of magnitude more than the effect of melting all the ice on the planet (~80m). This is not a scenario that anyone with even the loosest of ties to reality has ever considered a real possibility.
The plan is on the BORDER of nicaragua and costa rica. The full story is far more interesting. Nicaragua invaded costa rica in 2010 for the sole reason of capturing a portion of the river that is going to be used for the canal. Because it is on the border, I fully expect Costa Rica will also reap benefits from this project. * I have lived in Nicaragua and Costa Rica for past five years.
Uh, no. Nicaragua didn't invade anything. Costa Rica threw a fist when Nicaragua started dredging operations on the San Juan River, over which Nicaragua has full sovereign from border to border (that is sovereignty over the totality of the surface area) as per the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858 (with Costa Rica having only commercial navigation rights.)
There is a lot more the story than what you have been implying here. For example Costa Rica for a while insisted in sending armed police and patrol up and down the surface of the river in direct contravention of the Cañas-Jerez Treaty. And then complaining about the dredging operations on the river (again, under the complete sovereignty as per the treaty just mentioned.)
The so called island Calero is still under dispute, and until the ICJ pronounces itself, it cannot be legally called an invasion. I would also suggest people refer to the ICJ provisional ruling/advisory on this issue circa March, 2011, or the previous ones (2009). This is not to say that Nicaragua is free from any responsibilities, and has in fact violated certain Costa Rican navigational rights.
But the preponderance of sovereignty violations has been committed by the Costa Rican government (not the people who in general just mind themselves.) Again, don't take my word, just look at the ICJ rulings.
One thing for certain is that a canal, if one is ever created, it will benefit both economies substantially. And it will be stupid by both governments to create trouble around a region with so much potential.