It's amazing how a 3.5 minute video has instantaneously transformed hundreds of RU-vid viewers into skilled engineers, hydraulics authorities, and brilliant designers with backgrounds in shipping, energy, ecology, and economics! 😮
A do not forget the educated reporter repeatedly claiming it is because of climate change while implying it is due to human activities it rains less. Parafrased El nino made the change in climate worse. (After checking available climate data for Panama; levels are about the same as it was during the 1940´s)
Did they call general quarters or did you get to sit on the deck and look at it? I'm sure you got to look at it. I went through the Suez Canal 4 times during my enlistment and we got to see a lot of it.
@@ZombieCartmanYT Ya, it was cool. We were all topside checking out the scenery. The lake was surreal, several large ships in a pretty small body of water.
This has been all over the news for months. The worst part is other countries have locks designed to save fresh water by swapping salt water with fresh in the lock instead of dumping all the fresh water all the time. Look up the 'Dunkirk system' for locks. It has only existed since the 60s. A modern implementation is the krammer locks in the Netherlands.
Animal Agriculture contributes more to climate change than all other causes combined. If you want to stop climate change, we must have universal adoption of a plant-based diet.
And how will they guarantee business that way? It's the strategy, make cheap stuff that breaks so you buy again. You are literally asking the greedy rich man to volunteraly cut his own profit, and he'll sadly never even consider that
The problem is eveyone moaning about droughts yet countries don't institutionalize water collection systems. I'm up here in CA and we are having record rain, yet the govt doesn't mandate that every new building try to be self sufficient water wise by collecting and filtering its own water.
@@YouveBeenMiddled Really? That seems odd. Here in the Caribbean the authorities are always encouraging home owners to get water storage systems for the dry season. In Grenada where I live it's not uncommon to see large water tanks next to most homes.
cisterns on roof tops or in the ground can be useful... but the decision needs to be made to build them. In Saudi Arabia north of Jeddah they need to build some so as to divert flash floods but the cisterns need to be about 500 square miles each if you know what I mean.
I have a water maker on my boat that converts saltwater into freshwater. These desalination plants are used throughout the world including California. Ocean levels are rising so there's plenty of water to go around. Plenty of tax money collected to build desalination plants for rain and seawater.
Issue here is potentially pumping salty seawater into a manmade freshwater lake. What’s more important: preserving ecosystem of manmade lake or preserving smooth flow of world trade? However, the _real_ thing that complicates this issue is that the lake contributes a good percentage of Panama’s clean drinking water. Tricky.
Look up the 'dunkirk system' for locks or the krammer locks. There are ways to reduce fresh water losses by swapping the fresh water for salt water in the lock. Panama just ignored this and never implemented anything to save fresh water?
@mushmouth Except it isn't just 1 year with less rain, its year after year of countries all over the world experiences temperature extremes of hot and cold, rain and drought, floods, wild fires ect, all to much more extreme degrees than have ever been recorded. But keep burying your head in the sand and ignoring it all despite the clear evidence, because it's inconvenient for you to believe.
In Canada we've had far less rain and snow this winter and that means the possibility of another disastrous forest fire season. Climate change is a climate emergency or crisis now. Anyone denying this has been blinded by misinformation. Shame on the media for promoting such misinformation.
Putin has invested huge amounts into the infrastructure of the Northern Sea route, several nuclear icebreakers, ports and refueling stations and China is increasing its shipping into that route, although very small its likely to increase
That tired old trope... you still claiming mRNA is "safe and effective" because holocaust levels of dead prove the "anti-science nutters" and "conspiracy theorists" more accurate than the WEF owned politicians...@@TesterAnimal1
China and Russia also have a cargo trainline they operate at max from day one... as well as energy pipelines... soon enough NATO will be a 3rd world disaster...@@Worldturnedupsidedown
But didn't they widen and deepen the locks back in 2016 thereby using more water , so not climate change but overuse. People need to understand we have dry years and work to that. It's being used above it's design capacity. As an old farmer I recognise we have dry years and wet years always have ,always will .
It is an old short-sighted design, using a rain fed fresh water lake as a feed for the locks and then having to dump the brackish water after. It was the cheapest most effective method at the time (note, it was not cheap to make). The newer lock re-uses some of the water now, however, it is still a largely loss-based system. The lake could be sealed off from the canal and the lake water kept for the locals (fishing and drinking facilities). The canal could be a strictly sea water endevour, thus more reliable for the increased traffic, regardless of the weather. It will certainly cost a fair bit and will take a sodding long time - it is massive. The original design did well, considering how long it has been in action and the staggering increase in traffic it has served over the decades. Shipping costs will go up, due to delays using it as it is - they will also go up to pay for any improvements via passage charges.
Actually 2 lakes ,and deforestation and tremendous increase in water use in Panama City and silting up of the lakes and Much less rain in central America, AND ,AND ,AND.......🤪🤑
To spell it out, Britain is an island, who imports everything. This is why there was rationing in the world wars, because supply chain shipping was being attacked.
There is a lot happening today that paralells the years before WW2, including America and Britain putting a NAZI threat on Russia's border and provoking a global war, that period also saw forced medical experiments, Tony Blairs ID system, mass propaganda and surveillance... it's like the history books are repeating and as usual NATO are the bad guys...
Because the fresh water is highest, it simply flows down into the locks to fill them and empties into the sea. They can definitely pump sea water instead to fill the locks, but those pumps don't exist, and you'd end up with the 2 waters eventually mixing as it does already when the locks open, only the sea water goes into the fresh lake as opposed to vice versa
Unfortunately this will enforce nations to forgo the movement of these transport ships and give certain nations the impetus to begin manufacturing their own goods at home. We will see what happens.
How? Where? The problem has nothing to do with the width or depth of the canal. It has to do with the amount of fresh water available in the the lake to keep the locks functioning.
A full belly every night requires farms and farming is bad for the planet causing climate change. A safe place to sleep requires safe places and building safe places is bad for the planet causing climate change. 🤔
@@colorado8809 I mean... technically... you could. It would lead to a wide spread ecological disaster and destroy the whole local eco system but when has that ever stopped politicians.
Don't pump salt water up; only the first lock on each side needs to involve salt water. The locks above that are fresh water and you could use pumps to RECLAIM the fresh water being poured into them with each ship that passes. They could even install bladders in the lower corners of each lock to fill and empty reusably with just a pump; it would raise the water level without contaminating it, and drastically reduce the total quantity needed to float each ship.
It is running out of freshwater; Which they use in some parts of the canal. ( It's a big a$$ lake ). The locals also use that same freshwater for drinking and irrigation.
People knew this was coming with Global Warming. Mexico is building the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuatepec railroad to connect the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. They are upgrading their harbors to allow quick loading/unloading of intermodal railcars or well cars carrying shipping containers two high like in the US. In Canada they are looking at the Northwest Passage.
This is not a climate change problem. This is humans, saying it's a problem for a quadrillions ton of shipping. Honestly, the bullshi* is breathtaking.
I lived in Panama a few years back, and I remember one dry season that was so long they had to limit how much cargo ships could carry because all the weight was causing ships to scrape the bottom of the canal!
due to lower water levels, ships in the canal need to have a high draft so they must carry lighter cargo and this reduces overall productivity of shipping.
@@markotrieste What is the difference between climate and weather? The answer when I was in college (1977) was climate is weather on a geologic time scale. Look it up today. The definition of climate is weather more than 3 decades from today. It's impossible to know if the climate is changing and if so, why. But you can be convinced that the weather is changing because of man, then you can be convinced to give the government more control over your life. (I'm old enough to have lived through scientists and the media claiming we were going to experience another ice age. Then it morphed into cooking the earth. Then it was 12 years to the point of no return. Now, its that weather will change in unimaginable ways. So whatever the weather does, its climate change.
@@lakeguy65616 The risk of a global winter was related to the consequences of a nuclear war. It's since the times of Svante Arrhenius at the beginning of the 20th century that we know that emissions of carbon dioxide would increase global mean temperatures. You can find an interesting explanation of the history of the science of global warming on the site of the American Institute of Physics. Also, you can check your belief about predictions of global cooling on the site "skeptical science".
FACT: HUGE waste of water when Cruise ships enter the canal then turn around and leave 5 hours later. No Cruise ship should be allowed to enter the canal unless it passes from one side to another.
This is what happens if you cut and burn down the rainforests around the world especially in Brasil. There the rainforest collapsed and evolves into a steppe.
Way too many people were concerned about the costs of protecting the climate. Now we learn what the costs of not protecting the climate are. Delivered as ordered.
Water is heavy - to refill a lake 85ft above sea level by another 5ft, it would use up an oil well in a year, and you can't buy pumps like that in some store.
@@petertaysum8947 Given th distances involved I reckon that I could rig up some solar powered water pumps that will do the job from stuff lying about in any DIY store, all they need then is taanks to store the water prior to use. This is the literal definition of 'Not Rocket Science"!
There is a new, much larger, canal, that was in service in about 2017. Had the Panamanians stuck with the smaller, 1902 Canal, they would have been fine.
The locks NEED only fresh water as the salt water clogs the lock machanism......I believe that 50 million gallons of fresh water are needed per ship passage through the Panama Canal........
Turn it into a closed-loop system that doesn't "use" so much water. Incorporate large pumps to return the water from the lowest lock instead of sending it out to the sea.
There have been solutions to this problem since the 60s. Panama has just ignored it. Look up the dunkirk lock system or the krammer locks. They swap the fresh water with salt to avoid dumping all the fresh water. They minimize salt water getting into the fresh water.
@DamonMoritz that catalyst is still climate Remember this is the driest season in the history of the canal However it's also the big wigs that have be stalling solutions
@@doubt3430 I doubt it's the climate. Just a dry year. It happens, look at California or Nevada. Cyclical. Really feels like piss poor planning, and resourcing due to laziness.
Scientists for years: Climate change will affect millions of people and lead to immense economic losses in the future. Economists: Ah Nah. Fuck It. Until then I am rich enough.
Could they pump ocean water to fill them? I imagine they would then have to do something to treat the water to keep the lake from becoming too salty. They wouldn't have to completely switch, but could supplement the lake water with pumped salt water.
@@OldHickoryReincarnate I got it slightly wrong, it should be the BBC is legally obliged to be accurate and to be fair. The BBC is not perfect, but it stands head and shoulders above most media organisations in the quality of its journalism. Compare with someone like Fox News for example. No sarcasm intended.
@@stevebarlow3154 🤣 any "news organization" funded by the government isn't news. Sorry you're just learning of this. BBC,FOX,CNN,CBN, all news if not completely independent, isn't news. Wow. I cannot believe someone is learning this in 2024...
@@stevebarlow3154 RU-vid doesn't like my comments and deleted it. I'll try only once more. You need to open your mind. Any news organization funded even in part by its nations government will only say words approved by the government. Thus. It's not news. It's propaganda.
Not only climate change. The canal was widened and deepened a few years back resulting in more whater running through resulting in faster draining of the water. The problem i think is mainly human made. If the climate plays a rule is hard to say because of the widening. I think they don't though it would be that big of a problem, but it is. Climate change can be also be a part, but how much. To say the climage change alone is guilty, isn't true.
not unless they use sea water, thing it the whole world has the same amount of water its just not always where they want it to be we have a feck ton in europe and china they can have billions of cubic meters of ours
I just love how entirely not in control of anything we are. Mamma Nature looks at us and says, ‘Those are some fun canals you built down there, good job - hope you don’t need them for anything important cause you won’t be using them this year! XOXO.’
This does have an effect on the US. As California has become hostile to truckers and shipping, a lot more ships are going to the east coast instead of California shipping yards.
Yeah, ummm...BBC, this was announced months ago and they knew that the El Nino issue was going to cause rainfall issues. The main problem is that they can't pump in seawater as it's used for drinking water as well. So they can't shortcut a fix. The only real solution is either for Mexico to build their bypass solution which takes the load off the ships and transfers them from one side to the other, or come up with a hyper-expensive solution to desalinate the water first before trying to fill the lake with that water. The again, I hear the fees for the passage are really high right now, maybe they could swing it.
Nothing to do with climate change , easy to blame everything on that . More to do with not conserving water and making allowance for the different seasons and that elusive El Niño / La Niña .
Stop using nuclear weapons testing in the middle of the seas under water, stop dumping fuel from commercial airplanes over the sea before they come into land. It takes these rules as well and other things i could mention.
The lake also supplies a large number of people with fresh water and their livelihood. You can just pump sea water into it without causing a whole slew of other problems.
@@mb3928Have a look at Google Earth and tell me where you would build a pond to hold as much water as that lake, remembering that every ship that enters and leaves the canal drains lord knows how much water out into the sea. What would it cost to build, operate and maintain and would the shipping companies of the world be willing to pay it. It can already cost upwards of half a mil for the biggest ships to transit the canal.
Yes, the river is not in that great of a condition. But I'm sure technology will get us out of this problem. This is not the end of shipping as we know it lol.
the top lake is 85 ft above sea level, every time a ship goes up through the locks, water has to go from the lake into the locks, to raise the ship up. That water is lost to sea.
No, over regulation is the reason. Failures to drill caused by government over reach and an insistence on shipping oil long distances cause the increased costs. That and unending wars.
This won't fix the larger problem but they can always pump seawater to fill the locks instead of gravity fed lake water and drag deeper channels on the lake bed. It's a simple idea. Is it wrong?
@@notexpatjoe Thank you. I’m learning here. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hZvGVUZi9FU.htmlsi=odTnR18fD6P2e5fg In this news report the reporter says that each of these pumps (used to keep New Orleans dry) move 1000 cubic feet per second. That is 7480 gallons per second. So 26.7 million gallons would take roughly one hour with one pump. Did the reporter make a mistake? And there is more: the newest canal pump station pumps 5,655,273 gallons per minute, so that would mean that it could pump enough water to fill a lock in five minutes. So technically it seems feasible, but maybe it's too expensive. Obviously I don't know.
We are really doomed. We were in el nino condition which supposedly brought a lot of rain in south america. But in fact, panama has less rain. Cannot even imagine if we have la Nina this year.
