Why it’s the End of Panama Canal

Why it’s the End of Panama Canal

trade the Panama Canal is also suffering from major disruption at climate change climate change is climate change and Engineering Marvel the Panama Canal the world’s biggest traffic jam has started there are over a 150 cargo ships that are stranded in the sea as they all want to use the shortcut that the Panama Canal has to offer and the shocking part is that these ships are ready to pay $400,000 to the Panama government so that they could use the Panama Canal despite that the Panama authorities are not allowing any ships to use the canal and know there is no maintenance work or repairs going on over there but in fact a proud engineering Marvel the Panama Canal is under a huge crisis situation welcome to another intriguing video from the golden mindset in the whole world there are two shortcuts for maritime ships one is the Suez Canal in Egypt which connects East Asian countries like China Japan Taiwan and Singapore to Europe similarly if these country’s ships need to go to East America or east Canada or from Europe to West America another shortcut is used this is the Central American shortcut that is the Panama Canal there are around 50,000 cargo ships in the world and 70% of them use these two shortcuts so if for any reason there’s an issue in either the Suez or Panama Canal its impact will be felt globally as the world has seen before in 2021 when the everg given ship blocked the Suez Canal’s traffic for 6 days if something similar happens in the future ships will have to take the long route which will take more time and incur extra fuel costs ultimately these extra costs will be passed on to users like you and me for using these shortcuts in shipping companies also pay Hefty toll taxes to Canal authorities along with having to deal with their demands but what’s the compulsion here why do we even need the canal let’s take an example a ship from the United Kingdom needs to reach San Francisco in West America now this ship has two routes to reach its destination one is that it can cross the entire North Atlantic Ocean go around the bottom Cape of South America and enter the Pacific Ocean then go to San Francisco this total distance is over 25,000 km taking the ship 28 days and consuming about 8 million L of fuel costing around $100,000 in this whole trip the shipping company not only loses time but also incurs fuel costs which will be around $32 million the second route option is to go directly from the United Kingdom to the Caribbean Sea and then use the shortcut of the Panama Canal to directly enter the Pacific Ocean and then go to San Francisco in the first route where the ship had to travel a distance of 25,000 km using the Panama Canal reduces the distance to just 14,000 km which is 44% lesser than the first route this means that due to the Panama Canal the shipping company saves almost half of the fuel cost which amounts to about 14 million now you might think that ships prefer passing through the Panama Canal for greater savings but that’s not the case nowadays toll taxes for a ship passing through the Panama Canal are around $400,000 but sometimes this rate can go up to $800,000 to even a million dollar even then ships happily pay this amount the biggest benefit of using the canal is Time Savings if ships take 15 or 20 extra days on each route it means a ship that operates 24 times a year on a route will only operate 12 times resulting in fewer bookings in simple words time is money and to save this time sh shipping companies pay a hefty amount to pass through the Panama Canal whether they have to wait in a queue for 5 or 10 days or have to deal with the demands of the canal authorities but now the issue is that even though the Panama authorities want more ships to pass through the canal they can’t allow it this issue raises the question before understanding this do we need to know how the Panama Canal works this engineering Marvel whoever designed it was indeed a genius but even such a genius couldn’t challenge nature if we look at the Panama strip it’s a 30 km wide land strip in Central America with oceans on both sides here a canal like the Suez couldn’t be dug because the land here is 30 m above sea level so ships are lifted up to 30 m using locks at the Canal’s opening these locks work like stairs to lift the ship up the first locks door opens and the ship enters it after closing the first locks door water is filled in lock number one there’s no need for any motor or pump in this process because the water level is higher in lock number two which helps raise the ship automatically as soon as the water levels in both locks are equal the door in between opens and the ship moves to lock number two the door of lock number one is closed from behind and water is filled in lock number two similarly now water is filled in lock number three after the water level in lock number two is equal on both sides after opening the door in between the ship now moves into to lock number three after closing the door of lock number three water is filled in Gun Lake lock and the ship finally reaches lock number three in lock number three the water level equals that of Gaton Lake finally after opening the last door the ship enters Gun Lake in this process of 10 to 15 minutes the ship is lifted up by 30 m after traveling in gon Lake it takes the ship about 11 hours to reach Panama’s other coast there are also locks there that lower the ship back down by 30 m bringing it to sea level it’s noteworthy that in both processes that is lifting the ship up or lowering it down water from Lake Katon is used the water from lock number one is discharged into the sea to bring it to sea level and this lake has fresh water which is actually dumped into the Sea Lake gon’s water is used to operate Panama Canal’s locks and it also serves the drinking needs of the local population only one ship that uses the Panama Canal discharges as much water into Lake gatun as 5 million people consume daily on average every day 38 ships pass through the Panama Canal which means water equivalent to the Daily consumption of 190 million people is dumped into the Sea Lake gatun is a very large lake almost the size of an average city rainwater from surrounding mountains flows into Lake katun replenishing the water lost due to ships passing through this has been happening for 110 years since the Panama Canal was built there were no doubts or concerns about what would happen if there was less rainwater in Lake katun when the Panama Canal was built however this issue has now become a major crisis and every time it’s getting more serious currently the situation is so dire that there was no rain here last year in 2023 and the weather department has predicted very little rainfall even in 2024 seeing this the Panamanian government has only two options left either operate the canal or provide drinking water to its people the canal brings in annual revenue of $4.3 to billion which is a significant part of Panama’s total GDP if the canal is closed it affects this income and if it’s kept open there’s a problem of water scarcity for drinking even by installing pumps seat cannot be pumped into Lake katun because it would make the canal easier to operate but then the lake water would become brackish and unfit for drinking therefore now the government here has started taking some measures to save water in Lake gun first of all where 38 ships used to pass through the canal daily now only 18 ships per day are allowed and secondly permission is being given only to those cargo ships to pass through the canal ships with fewer containers obviously have less weight so they discharge less water due to this cargo loads on ships are reduced to as low as 40% % the remaining cargo is then loaded onto new ships this means that the total number of ships passing through Panama has also increased significantly outside the Panama Canal there are long lines of ships waiting for their turn to pass through the canal especially those whose bookings were not made in advance are forced to wait for up to 15 days along with these delays toll taxes are being charged extra and freshw surcharges are also being collected this is cre created a disturbance on the routes between Europe and West America and East Asia cargo deliveries are delayed and Panama Canal bookings are being made even before manufacturing for goods that are currently in the manufacturing process moreover these bookings are at higher prices to solve this issue various proposals are being considered one of them is creating a bay of Oceania Corridor in this Corridor ships will unload containers at one Coast load them onto trucks or trains and trans Port them to the other coast from there they will be loaded onto other ships again this option seems quite good but in the western parts of South America the Andes mountain range stands as a barrier this range extending 9,000 km is the longest mountain range in the world it’s impossible to lay rail tracks or Road networks between these mountains similarly a corridor is being created in North America at a point in Mexico which is only 190 km wide and has Seas on both sides The Mexican government is laying rail networks between these seas and building modern ports on both sides with a total cost of 2.85 billion the completion of this project is expected by 2030 after completion this route will be cheaper and faster than the Panama Canal once completed around 13 million containers can pass through here annually comparatively during normal operations the Panama Canal sees annual passage of 26 million containers containers this means that the inter Oceanic Nick Corridor in Mexico will divert half of Panama’s load towards itself after 6 years from now this project is quite promising compared to other options as it expands the network from coast to coast however it will still take several years to complete the future of the Panama Canal is becoming increasingly uncertain globally if rains start here again the canal will start operating at its full capacity however it’s uncertain when climate change is a re it and dealing with it is not something that can be easily managed in the coming years there might be such a shortage of rains here that the canal might have to be closed indefinitely it’s hoped that this video will also shed light on these issues

00:00 Panama Canal Dying
00:15 What is the Problem?
00:53 Canals are Shortcuts
01:50 Hefty Toll Taxes
02:01 Why do we need the Canal?
04:15 How Panama Canal works?
06:05 Lake Gatun
07:10 The Current Big Issue
08:10 Government Rules
09:12 Solution
10:48 The End of Panama Canal?

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📰 Sources & visuals:
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https://www.britannica.com/topic/Panama-Canal
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230825-the-rival-to-the-panama-canal-that-was-never-built
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2023/8/29/is-the-panama-canal-in-danger-of-drying-up
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