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A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

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Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#31

Post by jorisboris »

perihelions wrote: post #24
pacificmint wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that how all locks work? Or at least most? I’ve always assumed the energy cost to pump the water would make it cost prohibitive, but I wonder how it compares to rerouting ships or moving containers over land.

Some canal locks pump water back, - "The hydraulic cylinders enable the water used by the locks to be pumped back. Up to 48,000 cubic metres of water are displaced in a single lockage operation. In periods of low discharge on the Meuse, the screws can pump back the water lost due to the passage of a ship through the lock to the upper canal reach." https://www.inlandnavigation.eu/power-of-water-and-wind/

In Belgium on the Albert Canal (a big canal for Belgium but nothing compared to Panama Canal) they started installing pomps 15 years ago for the exact same reason.

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#33

Post by ok_dad »

stkdump wrote: post #15
donor20 wrote: post #5

One note - they don’t pump water out and back into the locks from a neighboring storage. They flush the water. Each ship needs like 40 million gallons? Maybe title should be insane wastes of water forces authorities…. :)

I had to check if that realistic. 40 million gallons at 85 feet is 11MWh of potential energy. At 70% efficiency it would take 16MWh to pump that. That has to be a small amount of energy compared to what ships take for traveling the detour.

It would take a long time to pump that amount of water out of the lock that you’re lowering, and over time you’ll be pumping saltwater into a freshwater system, which isn’t good. You’d have to do filtering or something, at great expense. Currently it takes a short time to drain the lock, so ships transit faster. It’s pretty fun to do that transit, but I was amazed that the pilot let me conn the ship the whole time instead of doing it themselves. I guess on military ships they prefer we do it maybe, but I was glad for that experience.

My ship had two jet turbine engines that did 31 MW of propulsion, which was a small ship compared to most freighters, so energy wise it would be very efficient still.

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#34

Post by actionfromafar »

londons_explore wrote: post #25
stkdump wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to check if that realistic. 40 million gallons at 85 feet is 11MWh of potential energy. At 70% efficiency it would take 16MWh to pump that. That has to be a small amount of energy compared to what ships take for traveling the detour.

And remember each ship goes up as well as down - so you can theoretically recoup all the energy you used pumping.

I am sorry, how?!

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#35

Post by londons_explore »

actionfromafar wrote: post #34
londons_explore wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And remember each ship goes up as well as down - so you can theoretically recoup all the energy you used pumping.

I am sorry, how?!

Imagine one ship going upwards in a lock, while another goes down. Ships and locks are the same size.

To start with, there is a difference in the water levels - and this can be put through a generator to generate electricity as the water flows from one lock to the other.

When the water has moved half way, the levels are equal. You can now use electricity to pump the rest of the way - and theoretically, assuming lossless pumps and generators, you use the same amount you generated earlier.

Unfortunately, low-head generators tend to be inefficient and expensive. Variable head generators are even harder to design to be efficient.

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#37

Post by oneshtein »

saagarjha wrote: post #36
oneshtein wrote: post #32

This may create a window of opportunity for Russia, because Russia communicates with China and NK via land routes, while Western allies are separated by ocean.

Opportunity to do what?

To disrupt supply routes and perform whatever they have in their mind. Russia switched to war-time mode, so they think that they can win the war with NATO. Massive disruption in trade routes may shift balance of powers in democratic countries, which Russians may want to exploit. Russians are strong at informational front, they are strong liars and shadow players.

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#38

Post by AdamN »

oneshtein wrote: post #32

This may create a window of opportunity for Russia, because Russia communicates with China and NK via land routes, while Western allies are separated by ocean.

Rail/Road doesn't compare to ships in terms of throughput by weight so the land route to China from Russia, even if the freight train system were robust, would not handle the same amounts that a trans-oceanic route like China to the Americas could handle (or even China to St. Petersburg if that were needed)

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#39

Post by aziaziazi »

dumbo-octopus wrote: post #20
namaria wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The canal is connected to a natural fresh water system. You can't just pump salt water in there without risking a massive ecological disaster.

You could pump water to the highest lock lower than the lake though. But salt water doesn't mix well with things not intended for salt water.

No you can’t: locks need to open for ship to go through and pools mix when this happen. This is also true for lockTop and LockTopMinusOne. In Panama Canal, LockTop is the lake. It’s Lake Gatún and provide fresh water for Panama City as well as other life forms in this pristine region.

Re: A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal

#40

Post by helsinkiandrew »

oneshtein wrote: post #32

This may create a window of opportunity for Russia, because Russia communicates with China and NK via land routes, while Western allies are separated by ocean.

An 'average' panamax container ship carries 4,200 lorries/train carriages of goods. The infrastructure to move 100K of those a day 1000s of miles on land would be enourmous and make global trade prohibitively expensive - far cheaper to sail for longer around the capes.
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