
The New Panama Canal: A Risky Bet - dctoedt
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/22/world/americas/panama-canal.html
======
TheBiv
Wow, what an incredible way to view content!

From the awesome drone videos detailing exactly what I'm looking at, to the
great writing and the animations throughout; this was awesome!

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capote
I was going to say exactly this--never realized how breathtakingly
cool/large/long/complex that canal was until now.

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dalke
Was it enough to get you to buy a subscription to the NYT? Basic subscription
is less than $4/week.

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rando18423
The ads seemed to cover it fine

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joeyh
My grandfather worked as a structural engineer on the canel. I have old papers
with calculations of stress on the concrete, done by hand.
[http://www.archive.org/details/panama-canal-lock-design-
pape...](http://www.archive.org/details/panama-canal-lock-design-papers)

Anyway, since container ships are driving this expansion, I wonder if this is
a case of scaling the old thing up unncessarily when new technology allows a
different solution.

Perhaps an overland transport for the containers across the ishthmus? Seems it
would depend on the time needed to unload+load a container ship. Transit time
through the canal is 8-10 hours, so if a ship can be turned around in that
amount of time, it could be economical to not send it through the canal. I've
found some indications that a unload+load can be done in 10-12 hours.

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danielvf
The new canel is estimated to 6 ships a day carrying up to 14,000 containers
apiece. You know the old joke about the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of
hard drives? The new canal has a "bandwidth" of more a continuous container
per second. Hard to do that with a railway.

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nradov
Even after the completion of the Panama Canal expansion, many larger ships
still won't bother to use it because they can't fit under the Bayonne Bridge
to reach the major ports near New York. The bridge was supposed to be raised
but work has been delayed due to engineering errors and bad weather.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-expanded-panama-canal-
prepare...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-expanded-panama-canal-prepares-to-
open-new-york-isnt-ready-1466587807)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Why would that make a difference?

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gwern
> Internal arguments soon gave way to bigger problems. There would be work
> stoppages, porous concrete, a risk of earthquakes and at least $3.4 billion
> in disputed costs: more than the budget for the entire project.

For a megaproject, 2x overrun is downright wonderful.

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darkstar999
They must purposefully underbid knowing that they can run up the cost with
impunity?

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toyg
Of course. Which is why "lowest bidder" rules are often nonsense (they are
usually sold as anti-corruption, but it would be much better to simply have
strict clauses against overruns instead).

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throwaway2048
the problem with that is then overruns bankrupt the venture/company bidding,
and it doesn't get completed, and you have to spend even more having somebody
else take over.

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Animats
Oh, crap, they botched the concrete in the new locks. That's going to be hard
to fix.

The concrete in the original locks is a century old and showing no problems.
That's a major achievement in general, and in an application where concrete is
exposed to salt water, very impressive. Check out almost any seawall or pier
that's more than a few decades old.

Sad. When this project was first announced, the Panama Canal Authority
insisted they were going to get the concrete right. They didn't.

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ak217
Not to downplay the importance of good concrete, but I thought the Panama
Canal structures almost all handled freshwater (since they rely on the flow of
water from Gatun Lake).

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oh_sigh
Yes except in the lowest locks

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Animats
All the locks get some salt water. As each lock opens to the neighboring lock,
water from the two locks mixes. Enough salt water flows uphill that Gatun Lake
is becoming slightly salty.[1]

[1] [http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDo...](http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA378475)

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winslow
"Time was another issue. The contract called for the work to be completed in
1,883 days so that the opening would coincide with the 100th anniversary of
the canal’s 1914 inauguration."

Boy do I love arbitrary deadlines!

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Gustomaximus
Great write up. I was really surprised about a few things;

\- They're aiming for concrete to last 100 years on the new lock. Doesn't this
seem short sighted? The canal is already 100+ years old and its hardly like
we'll be air freight and 3D printers in just another 100 years.

\- The lock size for these panamax ships being so tight. Current management
issues aside, wouldn't it be prudent to plan for ship sizes to grow to new
'panamax' levels? Its reasonable to assume shipping companies will want larger
ships 50 years from now, if not sooner.

\- $800,000 for a ship to cross. Wow

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notatoad
>Doesn't this seem short sighted?

there's a balance between planning for the future and unreasonable
expectations or overplanning. expecting concrete to last 100 years seems like
a reasonable expectation to me. We might not be post-container-ship in 100
years, but there's a good chance there's some other reason the current locks
are obsolete - anything from the locks being too small, to Gatun lake being
dried up, to automated ports making it easier to unload, transport overland,
and re-load onto a waiting ship.

~~~
Gustomaximus
This reply supports the second point of the locks being so tied to the current
panamax size. Obviously there is balance of current cost to future benefit but
this upgrade seems entirely tied to what is relevant today, when we know 20
years from now will be different. If you look at ship sizes they tend to jump
a fair bit every ~20 years.

There must be another factors like the lake depth encouraging them to restrict
to this size. It just seems too short sighted (from my uneducated view),
especially when as others have pointed out there are already much larger
ships.

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sctb
A few recent discussions related to the upcoming expansion opening:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11913026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11913026)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11937133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11937133)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11810754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11810754)

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51Cards
That's pretty scary about the size issue... that the largest container ships +
2 tugs = the max size of the lock with no wiggle room. If a container ship
drifts the tug has no where to go to escape being squashed.

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disbelief
Wow I had no idea this canal was such a disaster in the making, and the
article didn't even mention the canal the Chinese are building in Nicaragua
which would significantly shorten shipping routes compared to Panama.

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dalke
"Are building" is a bit premature. Quoting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal)
:

> "Major works" such as dredging will take place after a Pacific Ocean wharf
> is finished and the wharf's construction will not start until after August
> 2016. ...

> Media reports have suggested the project would now be delayed or even
> possibly canceled because Wang Jing's personal wealth declined greatly as a
> result of the 2015–16 Chinese stock market crash.

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joering2
Instead of Hyperloop, Musk should have invented underwater canal system.

I mean, ain't the ocean floor the inviting highway? with minor to none
obstacles? Design multiple tubes inside each other (to compensate high
pressure) and suspend it at 100m deep water level with computer-regulated
height and start rolling cargo by using pressure pushing it from one end to
the other.

(I'm aware its bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea!)

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powera
I like the idea, but it seems completely impractical. How is this possibly
cheaper than boats?

Also, building a floating tube in the water seems a lot harder than an
elevated tube on land, because you can't possibly reach the ocean floor for
supports.

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joering2
Its cheaper because the differences in height/pressure between both ends would
push the cargo on its own. It would be similar to drooping an object from
height - when gravity works you don't need extra energy to push the object.

You wont reach the floor. It would be suspended on simple "air bags"
controlled by computer - again using the simple physics of gas in fluid being
pushed upwards.

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mrfusion
Why does it look like the tankers have to wait around a long time before going
through?

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protomyth
Part of it might be that tankers have been parked near the canal because of
low oil prices. Some of them even skipped the canals (Panama and Suez)
altogether to lengthen their route hoping for oil to go up.

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toomuchtodo
> Some of them even skipped the canals (Panama and Suez) altogether to
> lengthen their route hoping for oil to go up.

No. It was because crude oil is so cheap, its cheaper to burn the oil than pay
the Suez transit fees.

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protomyth
True, but tankers were also being parked all over.

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toomuchtodo
Yeah, but not at transit points, at offloading points (notably
Houston/Galveston).

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protomyth
Really, I thought I saw an article on it because of some weird scheduling,
might be way off, they did blend together at the time.

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toomuchtodo
[http://gcaptain.com/oil-tanker-backlog-in-u-s-gulf-seen-
as-n...](http://gcaptain.com/oil-tanker-backlog-in-u-s-gulf-seen-as-new-
symbol-of-glut/)

~~~
protomyth
Wow, the down voters are going a bit wild - why is toomuchtodo being down
voted?

