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You didn't mention about the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty that was signed between Nicaragua and the United States on August 5, 1914. It gave the United States full rights over any future canal built through Nicaragua. By the terms of the treaty, the United States acquired the rights to any canal built in Nicaragua in perpetuity, a renewable 99year option to establish a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca, and a renewable 99-year lease to the Great and Little Corn Islands in the Caribbean. For those concessions, Nicaragua received $3 million. At the request of Nicaragua, the United States under Richard Nixon and Nicaragua under Anastasio Somoza Debayle held a convention, on July 14, 1970, that officially abolished the treaty and all its provisions.
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt's ships for several years in the 19th Century used the Nicaraguan route, minus the canal between the lake and the Pacific Ocean. Even he, however, couldn't muster the cash to build that last link.
I am surprised you didn’t mention the Panama Canel expansion project which was completed in 2016 that allowed the new neopanamax ships to go through the panama canal. These new ships dramatically reduce the capacity gaps. This changed the economic equation making the Nigaraguan Canal even less economically feasible.
Not really. While the canal was being expanded, container ships were being built that already would exceed its newer size. And the water is just a seasonal thing. The news doesn't report when there's excess water, because there are less views with good news and no one can sell doom and gloom when times are good. This could create a competition lowering tolls, which is where you determine your profits.
Panama enlarged their canal to meet the demand of the Panamax shipowners. What if Panama had said: Thk's but no thk's ! And told the shipowner to show the money. There would probably not have been any Panamax ship built and the Panama canal would still be operating at maximum water availability. Money talks loud and is always heard by its friend,...greed,...sometimes beyond reason !
Turning a 100 Metre wide section of the lake into a separate waterway alongside the bank would seem easier and cheaper than digging a canal while retaining the rest of the lake as fresh water.
Shipping across the lake isn't even the biggest problem. Connecting it to the oceans is. Once the canal is operational, the lake will be flooded with saltwater, eliminating it as a freshwater source and completely changing its ecosystem. This is basically the opposite effect of what happened to the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal. Before the canal was built, the Bitter Lake was a lot saltier than either of the two adjoining oceans. "Experts" expected this to prevent the migration of life forms from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean. Well, it did for a couple of decades. But by now, the salinity of the lake is the same as in the Red Sea. And the Mediterranean has become the new home of several invasive species.
The U.S Ain´t let that happend bc the Panama constitution says: If the canal is in a emergency the U.S has the power to take it back and They are going to build a reserve of water if It was necesary, so nah... We are going to be fine.
I'm not against the construction of Nicaragua canal but maybe it will dry up the fresh water of that beautiful big lake and for sure it will contaminate the lake, Nicaragua must protect that lake for today and for the future of Nicaraguans who live by,
The US after previous actions to prevent it from being built seemed to have failed they probably had him eliminated & China hasn’t said anything because they don’t want to admit the US was able to secretly delete someone on Chinese soil & they weren’t able to intervene or prevent it.
Either a new canal will be built through Nicaragua or the Panama Canal will need to be widened and deepened but the Panama Canal has water supply problems that may be hard to solve.
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It will certainly be a reality soon. It's easier to build custom ice breakers to lead ships through the few areas of ( not so thick any more ) ice. The weather is pretty severe, though, through the Bearing Straight. It's not as simple as it first looks. But Canada and the U.S. are 100% committed to making it work as it's a potential game-changer for their countries. No locks, no issues of pollution, just a way to clear the ice. As of writing this, the passage is actually open and clear water - and is expected to remain so for about 6-7 more weeks.
@@plektosgaming I lived in Nome for a few years between 1950 and 1953. That would have been a shock to everyone... watching a "train" of ships passing by. We'd get one cargo ship per year in the summer, and we had to place our orders with Sears and Roebuck mail order companies to be delivered the next summer. A lot of thought and "wishing/planning" were struggled through for each year's order. That year long wait was just torture, especially for the kids. It's certainly an interesting idea... just don't let the Chinese investors get involved!!! They're already working their way into central America.
1:00 It also saves a lot of fuel vs going around the Cape - and generally MUCH MUCH safer than the storms in the Cape area. Down side - ever hear the term "Panamax"? There is a SIZE limit to what can fit through the canal, even with the fairly recent 3'd Cut added with bigger locks - many of the largest Container ships, biggest Oil Tankers flat out won't FIT through the Canal (not a big deal to the tankers, they're mostly going other routes anyway, but a LOT of container ships use the Canal THAT CAN).
It seems to me that a high speed, freight-container, rail line shuttling back and forth between Atlantic and Pacific would be a much cheaper solution. If the trains were designed to rapidly load/unload cargo containers and powered by electricity, I think there would be much less environmental damage.
Sea travel is much cheaper than land travel. Where would all this electricity come from? Wind turbines that destroy the environment to get built and can't be recycled? Or nuclear energy which is clean and efficient, but has a scary name?
I think he mentioned half a billion tons a year of goods, and more is needed. I don't that could be done by rail, but I've never checked. But the loading off ships on one side, then onto land, then back to ships on the other side...jeez. And even with trucks, same load cycle. Plus fuel. And with all that loading; the number of accidents, deaths, labor...
When you consider that just a single ship can carry *20,000* containers and that a canal can handle multiple ships per day, you can start to see why a rail-based solution could never compete :-/
According to Wikipedia those sharks in the lake (bull sharks) pretend to be like salmon or trout and can actually jump out of the lake into the San Juan River which eventually feeds into the ocean. In other words, they can get the ocean girls!
@@paulbunion6233 Amazon sells my books in China. Trade goes both ways. To advance civilization, improvements in communications and transportation have to be solved. Communications are limited by speed of light and we're there now. Capacity is the problem to be solved. Canals have always been a good way to save on transportation cost and increase speed and capacity with very expensive infrastructure. Locks make canals much more expensive and complicated. Unless you can tunnel, mountain ranges require locks.
@@kaibrunnenG BECAUSE Einstein, IF YOU didn't purchase so much crap from China, there would be NO SHIPS so don't try and come off all caring about the environment when YOU are a big part of the problem
Actually the problem with the french canal Idea was better but the area they needed to build the canal was a gigantic marsh and it was difficult and full of virus carrying mosquitos. The americans decided to build elsewhere in panama in the mountain area where they used the lock system and that it why it was finally done.
Not only does Spain not get anywhere near the grief the US gets for "stolen land", they were allowed to sue treasure hunters in a world court and get the gold and silver that was painstakingly recovered from a shipwreck.
@@Duquedecastro Spain left its people in the countries it pillaged, even after they became independent. And they stole the land, which you failed to argue against.
I live on Lake Nicaragua. This proposed project would be a Enviromental disaster of global proportions to Central America and the world. Let’s pray it never actually occurs.
I have been in Nicaragua in the 1980s. I was working as a volunteer in the Sandanista times . The earthquake and Revolution vastly added to Nicaraguas economic problems ! The canal would help pull you out of poverty ! The river and lake are already there so how could completing a canal be such an environmental problem that you would prefer not to seize this golden opportunity ?
@@and__lam1152Water still flows down hill. A canal does not bring the ocean into the lake. However, it may drain the lake unnaturally and prematurely into the Pacific.
Didn't mention that Panama's fresh water lake is running out. Same thing will happen to the one in Nicaragua over time unless they use an idea like I had....
*Another option* - The Panama Canal reaches a max elevation of 85 feet above sea level. They wanted to make it a sea level crossing like the Suez Canal, but the equipment available at the time wasn't up to it. With the larger surface mining shovels available today, digging out the Panama Canal down to sea level should be reconsidered.
I like that idea, but even when they were building the first one, the mountains were so unstable that they buried whole trains. To have a stable canal route, you would have to move cubic miles.
@@arailway8809 At under 40 miles long from the beginning to the end of the locks, I doubt it would be 1 cubic mile of material (average over 800 ft. wide by 800 ft high), certainly not multiple miles. Front shovel excavator buckets can reach over 70 cubic yards, good operators target 1 shovel load every 30 seconds, which comes out to 168,000 cubic yards over 20 hours (allowing for down time). Even the high estimate of 1 cubic mile of material could be cleared by 20 shovels in under 5 years. Draglines and bucket wheel excavators have even larger capacity. Having high unstable walls isn't an issue - they could start at the higher points and work down, terracing if needed as they advance.
@@arailway8809 *Didn't take you long to abandon your volume claim,* you should have abandoned this as well. Where do you think they dispose of large volumes of excavations near the coast of any large body of water? *You're displaying the belief that posing a talking point as a question adds support in prose that doesn't exist in reality* - rational people realize reality doesn't work that way, you depend on it.
Normally container ship transits cost somewhere between $60,000 and $300,000. With continued congestion conflated by drought and low water, an auction system allows some ships to buy their way to the front of the line at the Canal. The Panama Canal Authority has an auction system that allows ships to bid for slots to move ahead in the queue. The starting bid for these slots is $55,000, but winning bids can range from $1.4 million to $4 million. The highest bids are usually won by carriers transporting liquefied petroleum gas or liquefied natural gas.
Build the original French plan for the Panama Canal by digging to sea level all the way through. This eliminates the need for locks and the freshwater needed to get ships through locks. It was an overwhelming task in the early 1900's, but could be done now. It is the best answer to this situation.
Why don’t we just patiently dig a path from one ocean to the other ocean so that you don’t need to make elevation locks? Sure it’ll cost money but people will earn the money and it will become a permanent structure.
Any plan that involves routing salt water into a fresh water lake , especially Lake Nicaragua must be stopped immediately . Lake Nicaragua is a "FRESH WATER LAKE" . If any canal routes salt water from the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans into any fresh water lake it will absolutely kill the lake . The plan to have a second canal to cross the country of Panama must go back to the drawing board and be moved much much farther south so that salt water does not enter Lake Nicaragua . Also , millions of people rely on Lake Nicaragua for fresh water .
Please. It was a land grab by and to benefit Daniel Ortega and his family - as they missed the looting they could do when he was previously in power. I bet the Chinese investor skimmed a big batch of money from the Chinese government too.
Ya, but the Panama Canal was built 110 years ago. Today there is much better earth moving equipment as well as better construction and civil engineering procedures. If they hired an American civil engineering firm to build the new canal, since it is on flat ground, it potentially be built very quickly!
When the US was taking about a Panama Canal in the 19th Century, we were taking to Colombia, Panama did not exist as an independent country. It did not become independent until 1903 and only with the US help. Weird and very important thing to gloss over. 🤷🏻♂️
If they were planning on digging 90% of the thing anyway then why would they still go through lake Nicaragua? Wouldn’t it make more sense to build it where it wouldn’t risk contaminating their fresh water. The only reason to use the lake was that it would make it cheaper by using natural rivers.
I think this project was cancelled because the corporations didn't want to see the Panama Canal lose money/business, that's all. Many corporations hate competition and this is one of example.
One thing that is not mentioned, is there going to be a lock system to raise and lower the ships 🚢 or keep the same water elevation at each end and use the tide to move the ships 🚢 from one ocean to the another. Suez Canal does this. Also what do you do with the lake's fresh water 💧 if the Canal is kept at sea levels on both ends 🤔 ??? Nothing said about that 😮.
@@roberthughes7237 that is the question 🤔. Do you make the Canal a sea level to sea level connection or do a lock and dam Canal to retain the fresh water 💧 🤔??? This answer is what needs to be discussed.
Tolls for a neomax containership can be as high as $1mil....this is for a guaranteed on-arrival passage slot. Expensive to be sure but cheaper than waiting 10 days.
China should build one canal for EACH two-ocean coastal Central American countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, plus Mexico and Columbia (sorry for El Salvador and Belize). Thenceforth, each of them can engage in free-and-fair market competition. 😉
Excellent still-motion photography pictures/drawings/maps. Enabling viewers to better understand what the orator is describing-!!!🤗. Much tariff .money 💰 made on those canal systems-!!!
Break it into three "parts". Lake, Pacific Canal, Atlantic Canal. EACH worked on for "long term". Build what you Can, now. All three half done? Link em easy.
My cousin and my great grandfather, great grandmother and my cousin wife left Barbados 🇧🇧 to help build the Panama 🇵🇦 canal . That how I have family members there back then. Even a cousin left Barbados 🇧🇧 to Panama 🇵🇦 in the 1880s when the French was building it . He return to Barbados 🇧🇧 in 1889 when the French stop building it.
I am surprised anyone was willing to invest at all in the canal, since the last 2 canals were 'entitled' into the hands of the locals. But given Nicaragua's inability to build it themselves, it shows the previous canal taking countries should not have acted so entitled about it, because they never would have been able to build it themselves.
The French failed because they thought they could dig a trench there like they did in Suez, which was impossible because the mountain range kept closing the gap they dug. It had to be done with locks and a lake but the french had no plan in that direction, ergo , failure.
Always remember the environmentalists and biologists saying they didn't want the Atlantic and Pacific joined there because of the different species in each ocean mixing and creating problems.
With the Panama canel slowly dying due to vital watersheds feeding it going dry. I can see another canel systems or two being build by the Americans funded by Blackrock or Vanguard some where in the region. Most likely Costa Rica or Nicaragua.
@@jackbelk8527 Yes and there in lies the problem with the lock design. I could be wrong, but I believe the Panama Canal was originally started by the French with an 'at grade' approach. If the lock system and fresh water lakes could be avoided then the result would be a superior canal though the engineering challenge to do this would be monumental. I presume that the ocean levels on each side of such a canal would not be the same elevation. Each lock = time = money. The reduction of locks is where the money is.
As someone who has family that would get displaced by this project, I'm obviously against it. Ortega is going to do a massive land grab and steal my family and many other family's farmland to make this canal. Unlike the American landgrabs where the government is obligated to pay for the land, Nicaraguan government can just take the land and leave you with nothing. Plus, as mentioned in the video, an enormous amount of Nicaraguans rely on Lago de Nicaragua for fresh drinking water. Having that lake invaded by the dense salt water of the Gulf of Mexico would ruin the drinking supply for thousands of people. Also, one of the volcanoes that make up the island in Lago de Nicaragua is an active volcano that has erupted not too long ago. Its twin is dormant, but with one of the two island volcanoes in that very lake being an active volcano, that will definitely hinder the project and cause doubts among shipping companies to use a potentially volatile shipping route.
Why not just a port on one side linked by railroad to a port on the other side. It’s gotta be quicker and cheaper especially with all the containers. That would then leave the canal to tankers. Pick anyplace that has the best terrain for the ports and rail.
Dear, once again very nice video. Thanks. But please I'm interested in the content, not in the adds for some VPN. With that many subscribers you don't need it.
The *_FRESH WATER_* is the primary concern here. The majority of the population lives near the lake and depend upon it for their drinking water. Contamination of the lake would be catastrophic for the economy, and far worse, the people.
We are going to have to do something because the Panama Canal is losing function. There has been talk about a train project across Mexico. But another canal would probably be better so that the cargo doesn't need to be loaded and unloaded.
Impossible. Sea level is not the same between the 2 great oceans and you would probably have to dig 100s of feet down and that would drain and destroy lake Nicaragua.
@@skiv12276 The difference is a rather small 8 inches or so between the two bodies of water. This is enough to cause a massive series of storms at the tip of South America, but if a giant channel could be built in theory, it would require a very simple single lock at the end. This is why Nicaragua was so keen on the idea. They have a route to the Lake already, naturally, and even with the elevation change, it's only a 100 ft drop from the lake down to the Pacific. So 2 to 3 locks is all you would need. Engineering-wise, using the river is a dead-simple proposition as the optimal place to build it would be farther north, near the city of Rivas. This appears to be a natural break in the mountain range.
@@plektosgaming it might be 8 inches. But are the tides the same. Definitely not. The cape cod canal is only 6 miles long, but has 2 different tides at either end which causes extreme currents. That’s just from a tiny canal connecting 2 bays. Taking away the fact the land rises hundred feet in middle of Nicaragua. I was commenting how it’s impossible to build without locks.
@@skiv12276 It definitely needs locks. But logistically there is a path where the elevation change is only a bit over 100ft and bypasses the mountains. That said, the pollution from the ships 24 hours a day would be bad for their environment.
You would think Ortega would have no problem getting funding from the CCCP and others but he has a bad Rep among the honest traders in the world. Maybe soon it will happen but that's still a tough uphill battle.
I wonder if they don’t realize that Mexico has already renovated a railway system called the tren Transistmico or trans-isthmic train and parallel highway to transport goods arriving from Asia to a modernized and enlarged port in Oaxaca on the Pacific coast across the thin isthmus to the port of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz. Plus there will be 10 industrial parks to be built along this route for added value on the goods being transported. Already huge ferry boats are ready to transport hundreds of cargo containers from Veracruz to Mobile Alabama and railway networks can also transport goods northward to the U.S..
Nicaragua must protect that lake for today and for the future of Nicaraguans who live by as the only fresh water lake depended upon and all the endangered species it would devastate. Solution? Who really knows? East canada chiming in.
It is foolish to invest into the unstable country. That's why most eastern european oligarchs don't invest their wealth into their own countries. They know that when political regime change, they can loose everything in a snap of a finger. They choose to invest into european economies that has been stable for a long time. Nicaragay could invest 5-10% of their GDP into this project a decades ago if country truly believed into it. Investers would come left and right along the way as they see progress. At the end Nicaragau invest in itself, its future, and prosperity of future generarions. It was said that they could double their GDP by completion of the project. This project should be considered major country development project but instead we can see how fool of bs they are.
If the water control system in the Panama Cannel worked correctly they would have no water loss at all simply pump it out to Containers and back in do not allow any water to pass from High to low reuse it over and over only evaporation would be the only loss.
I'd rather see a saltwater canal-border built between Mexico and the USA. The nice thing about doing this is new ports could be constructed along the line and create lots of jobs. Considering that Texas is becoming a major hub for space ports there is opportunity for creating direct Space to Sea links. The other opportunity is to utilize underground spent oil fields as an underground deep-well hydro storage. It is possible to hydraulically push fresh water with salt water without salt transferring to fresh and vice versa. The energy storage project could help with the costs of carving in-land through shared infrastructure. The Rio Grande could be piped under the canal. Just my two cents
What if a chain of boxes were dug, from A to B, the dug fill added to wall height, the distance between boxes measured for base distribution, and ships propellers, aimed at the turf dividers are blasted, creating a quick dig. Mexico could build a canal using this method. Minimizing environmental destruction keeping crews focused on managed areas, no expensive fill hauling by rail or truck. The higher dikes would protect the environment if sensitive to noise and industry polution. If beginning from both ends, each box could be finished out with ships bringing suppliers in a cheap option to the overland costs.
On Google Earth the land to the south and East of the lake looks fairly flat and there is a kilometer or two between the lake and the border. It would make sense to build a canal there rather than using the lake.
If each country did more of their own manufacturing there wouldn't be so much shipping traffic. Limiting traffic through the Panama Canal would probably be beneficial in the long run. Only as much traffic as the fresh water ecosystem of Panama will tolerate safely.
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What do you think, will the Nicaragua Canal ever be built? 🤔 And what other megaprojects should we cover next?
Not in my lifetime. A drought that completely disables the Panama canal would restart the idea more seriously.
@@kvom01
>
In the immortal words of Julia Sugarbaker, "I don't think so, Carlene."
And in the equally immortal words of Flo, "When donkeys fly."
You didn't mention about the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty that was signed between Nicaragua and the United States on August 5, 1914. It gave the United States full rights over any future canal built through Nicaragua. By the terms of the treaty, the United States acquired the rights to any canal built in Nicaragua in perpetuity, a renewable 99year option to establish a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca, and a renewable 99-year lease to the Great and Little Corn Islands in the Caribbean. For those concessions, Nicaragua received $3 million. At the request of Nicaragua, the United States under Richard Nixon and Nicaragua under Anastasio Somoza Debayle held a convention, on July 14, 1970, that officially abolished the treaty and all its provisions.
Hence why America will be the only one building any future canal in the region funded by Blackrock or Vanguard.
And 20 years later we were kicking ourselves as the Panama canal was beginning to fall apart.
Now to steal again???
@@plektosgamingthe US government doesn't own or control the Panama canal anymore
Soooo your saying the treaty no longer stands, wonder why no billionaires/ powerful corporations have pounced on this opportunity.
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt's ships for several years in the 19th Century used the Nicaraguan route, minus the canal between the lake and the Pacific Ocean. Even he, however, couldn't muster the cash to build that last link.
A second canal would be beneficial as it would reduce the waiting times for traversing the Panama Canal.
I am surprised you didn’t mention the Panama Canel expansion project which was completed in 2016 that allowed the new neopanamax ships to go through the panama canal. These new ships dramatically reduce the capacity gaps. This changed the economic equation making the Nigaraguan Canal even less economically feasible.
Except water is the issue now.
Not really. While the canal was being expanded, container ships were being built that already would exceed its newer size. And the water is just a seasonal thing. The news doesn't report when there's excess water, because there are less views with good news and no one can sell doom and gloom when times are good.
This could create a competition lowering tolls, which is where you determine your profits.
All it has done is make water the issue because it's too expensive.
@@dansullivan8968yes, and bigger ships.
Panama enlarged their canal to meet the demand of the Panamax shipowners. What if Panama had said: Thk's but no thk's ! And told the shipowner to show the money. There would probably not have been any Panamax ship built and the Panama canal would still be operating at maximum water availability. Money talks loud and is always heard by its friend,...greed,...sometimes beyond reason !
Shipping across a pristine fresh water lake that the entire country depends on seems like a bad idea.
Turning a 100 Metre wide section of the lake into a separate waterway alongside the bank would seem easier and cheaper than digging a canal while retaining the rest of the lake as fresh water.
It's already the case with the lake...don't know its name...that plays the same role in Panama.
Shipping across the lake isn't even the biggest problem.
Connecting it to the oceans is.
Once the canal is operational, the lake will be flooded with saltwater, eliminating it as a freshwater source and completely changing its ecosystem.
This is basically the opposite effect of what happened to the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal.
Before the canal was built, the Bitter Lake was a lot saltier than either of the two adjoining oceans. "Experts" expected this to prevent the migration of life forms from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean.
Well, it did for a couple of decades. But by now, the salinity of the lake is the same as in the Red Sea. And the Mediterranean has become the new home of several invasive species.
The drought in Panama and the possible closing of the canal could fuel this.
Panama is about to build an extra reservoir to solve the problem.
The U.S Ain´t let that happend bc the Panama constitution says: If the canal is in a emergency the U.S has the power to take it back and They are going to build a reserve of water if It was necesary, so nah... We are going to be fine.
I'm not against the construction of Nicaragua canal but maybe it will dry up the fresh water of that beautiful big lake and for sure it will contaminate the lake, Nicaragua must protect that lake for today and for the future of Nicaraguans who live by,
Can they do a canal without emptying the lake ?
@@edgarbenjoseph3879 not possible. these are big ships we are talking about and need lot of water.
Wang Jing coming out of obscurity to be a massive billionaire and then just as quickly disappearing. Oh nothing sketchy there at all.
The US after previous actions to prevent it from being built seemed to have failed they probably had him eliminated & China hasn’t said anything because they don’t want to admit the US was able to secretly delete someone on Chinese soil & they weren’t able to intervene or prevent it.
it is called chinese stock market lol
@@bessibossi69 Xi !!!!!!
Or that I'm having an affair with his wife & mistress-!!!🤗
We hardly know about big entrepreneurs in China. Jack Ma is pretty much the only one I can name.
Either a new canal will be built through Nicaragua or the Panama Canal will need to be widened and deepened but the Panama Canal has water supply problems that may be hard to solve.
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By the time this is built, Canada will open up Northwest passage
It will certainly be a reality soon. It's easier to build custom ice breakers to lead ships through the few areas of ( not so thick any more ) ice. The weather is pretty severe, though, through the Bearing Straight. It's not as simple as it first looks. But Canada and the U.S. are 100% committed to making it work as it's a potential game-changer for their countries. No locks, no issues of pollution, just a way to clear the ice. As of writing this, the passage is actually open and clear water - and is expected to remain so for about 6-7 more weeks.
@@plektosgaming I lived in Nome for a few years between 1950 and 1953. That would have been a shock to everyone... watching a "train" of ships passing by. We'd get one cargo ship per year in the summer, and we had to place our orders with Sears and Roebuck mail order companies to be delivered the next summer. A lot of thought and "wishing/planning" were struggled through for each year's order. That year long wait was just torture, especially for the kids.
It's certainly an interesting idea... just don't let the Chinese investors get involved!!! They're already working their way into central America.
It's open now isn't it?
Arctic waters are too shallow
"I never really liked that Panama Canal" ~ Suez Canal
@hillbilly, still getting used to electricity?
Why would you pollute a large freshwater lake . That water would be invaluable in the future.
I Never Liked Either Canal’s The Fishing Sucks at Both Of Them.. Too Many Big Boats Makes It Hard to Catch Anything!😊
Good thing no one has ever heard of Suez Canal
1:00
It also saves a lot of fuel vs going around the Cape - and generally MUCH MUCH safer than the storms in the Cape area.
Down side - ever hear the term "Panamax"?
There is a SIZE limit to what can fit through the canal, even with the fairly recent 3'd Cut added with bigger locks - many of the largest Container ships, biggest Oil Tankers flat out won't FIT through the Canal (not a big deal to the tankers, they're mostly going other routes anyway, but a LOT of container ships use the Canal THAT CAN).
It seems to me that a high speed, freight-container, rail line shuttling back and forth between Atlantic and Pacific would be a much cheaper solution. If the trains were designed to rapidly load/unload cargo containers and powered by electricity, I think there would be much less environmental damage.
Sea travel is much cheaper than land travel. Where would all this electricity come from? Wind turbines that destroy the environment to get built and can't be recycled? Or nuclear energy which is clean and efficient, but has a scary name?
I think he mentioned half a billion tons a year of goods, and more is needed. I don't that could be done by rail, but I've never checked. But the loading off ships on one side, then onto land, then back to ships on the other side...jeez. And even with trucks, same load cycle. Plus fuel. And with all that loading; the number of accidents, deaths, labor...
Mexico is building this exact thing currently.
When you consider that just a single ship can carry *20,000* containers and that a canal can handle multiple ships per day, you can start to see why a rail-based solution could never compete :-/
Ironically Mexico seems to be working on just such a venture.
Now all the sharks can get out of Lake Nicaragua and meet some ocean girls
According to Wikipedia those sharks in the lake (bull sharks) pretend to be like salmon or trout and can actually jump out of the lake into the San Juan River which eventually feeds into the ocean. In other words, they can get the ocean girls!
That's a beautiful lake. Hundred of ships going through there each day would over time contaminate the lake with pollutant.
Yeah, about a week.
maybe YOU can help prevent this by closing your Amazon account and buying only items locally made and not imported from China
@@paulbunion6233 Maybe you should be quiet? What's this have to do with China? It's the Nicaragua Government problem.
@@paulbunion6233 Amazon sells my books in China. Trade goes both ways.
To advance civilization, improvements in communications and transportation have to be solved.
Communications are limited by speed of light and we're there now. Capacity is the problem to be solved.
Canals have always been a good way to save on transportation cost and increase speed and capacity with very expensive infrastructure.
Locks make canals much more expensive and complicated. Unless you can tunnel, mountain ranges require locks.
@@kaibrunnenG BECAUSE Einstein, IF YOU didn't purchase so much crap from China, there would be NO SHIPS so don't try and come off all caring about the environment when YOU are a big part of the problem
Actually the problem with the french canal Idea was better but the area they needed to build the canal was a gigantic marsh and it was difficult and full of virus carrying mosquitos. The americans decided to build elsewhere in panama in the mountain area where they used the lock system and that it why it was finally done.
Not only does Spain not get anywhere near the grief the US gets for "stolen land", they were allowed to sue treasure hunters in a world court and get the gold and silver that was painstakingly recovered from a shipwreck.
Yes, wonder who was behind that?
Spain does not hold that land and hasn’t for 200 years. The US still sits on its s t o l e n land.
@@Duquedecastro Spain left its people in the countries it pillaged, even after they became independent.
And they stole the land, which you failed to argue against.
It has been suggested that Deforestation of the Amazon basin is contributing to lower rain falls.
I live on Lake Nicaragua. This proposed project would be a Enviromental disaster of global proportions to Central America and the world. Let’s pray it never actually occurs.
Please explain friend !
I have been in Nicaragua in the 1980s. I was working as a volunteer in the Sandanista times . The earthquake and
Revolution vastly added to Nicaraguas
economic problems ! The canal would help pull you out of poverty ! The river and lake are already there so how could completing a canal be such an environmental problem that you would prefer not to seize this golden opportunity ?
@David-hq4lq I'd hazard a guess that it's pretty self explanatory isn't it? ... you dig a canal, that's no longer a fresh water lake eh champ
@@and__lam1152Water still flows down hill. A canal does not bring the ocean into the lake. However, it may drain the lake unnaturally and prematurely into the Pacific.
Didn't mention that Panama's fresh water lake is running out. Same thing will happen to the one in Nicaragua over time unless they use an idea like I had....
*Another option* - The Panama Canal reaches a max elevation of 85 feet above sea level. They wanted to make it a sea level crossing like the Suez Canal, but the equipment available at the time wasn't up to it. With the larger surface mining shovels available today, digging out the Panama Canal down to sea level should be reconsidered.
I like that idea, but even when they were building the first one,
the mountains were so unstable that they buried whole trains.
To have a stable canal route, you would have to move cubic miles.
@@arailway8809 At under 40 miles long from the beginning to the end of the locks, I doubt it would be 1 cubic mile of material (average over 800 ft. wide by 800 ft high), certainly not multiple miles.
Front shovel excavator buckets can reach over 70 cubic yards, good operators target 1 shovel load every 30 seconds, which comes out to 168,000 cubic yards over 20 hours (allowing for down time). Even the high estimate of 1 cubic mile of material could be cleared by 20 shovels in under 5 years.
Draglines and bucket wheel excavators have even larger capacity.
Having high unstable walls isn't an issue - they could start at the higher points and work down, terracing if needed as they advance.
Where would you dump your material?
@@arailway8809 *Didn't take you long to abandon your volume claim,* you should have abandoned this as well. Where do you think they dispose of large volumes of excavations near the coast of any large body of water? *You're displaying the belief that posing a talking point as a question adds support in prose that doesn't exist in reality* - rational people realize reality doesn't work that way, you depend on it.
I was trying to gauge the depth of your thinking.
Purty good! Now tell me how many dredges you
will need.
It's never a bad idea to have options and to break up monopolies on a service.
Until one guy buys up both and uses an artificial price war against himself to drive up his revenue.
0:56
Half a million? or 500 million????
Normally container ship transits cost somewhere between $60,000 and $300,000. With continued congestion conflated by drought and low water, an auction system allows some ships to buy their way to the front of the line at the Canal.
The Panama Canal Authority has an auction system that allows ships to bid for slots to move ahead in the queue. The starting bid for these slots is $55,000, but winning bids can range from $1.4 million to $4 million. The highest bids are usually won by carriers transporting liquefied petroleum gas or liquefied natural gas.
I'll settle for either amount-!!!🤗
Build the original French plan for the Panama Canal by digging to sea level all the way through. This eliminates the need for locks and the freshwater needed to get ships through locks. It was an overwhelming task in the early 1900's, but could be done now. It is the best answer to this situation.
So which sea level?
@@jonyemm You act as though they are different.
@@relicofgold They are.
@@frequentlycynical642 Not after a canal is dug allowing them to infiltrate one another.
@@relicofgold Sigh. A canal will not equalize the difference of two fucking huge oceans. The difference is about 8",
They should skip making a canal and instead make a tunnel for the ships. The tunnel should even allow for an aircraft carrier to fit.
Why don’t we just patiently dig a path from one ocean to the other ocean so that you don’t need to make elevation locks? Sure it’ll cost money but people will earn the money and it will become a permanent structure.
Any plan that involves routing salt water into a fresh water lake , especially Lake Nicaragua must be stopped immediately . Lake Nicaragua is a "FRESH WATER LAKE" . If any canal routes salt water from the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans into any fresh water lake it will absolutely kill the lake . The plan to have a second canal to cross the country of Panama must go back to the drawing board and be moved much much farther south so that salt water does not enter Lake Nicaragua . Also , millions of people rely on Lake Nicaragua for fresh water .
Please. It was a land grab by and to benefit Daniel Ortega and his family - as they missed the looting they could do when he was previously in power. I bet the Chinese investor skimmed a big batch of money from the Chinese government too.
Exactly!!!
If so they definitely got that back from him lol
I can't help to compare your coment to the mayor of Dalton. She's skimmed, wasted, converted almost $9mil from the coffers.
That's probably why nobody knows where he went.
Wonderful presentation sir. Thank you
at 0:57 they said halF a million$ but then write 500M$,
Getting the canal doug is still the basic problem. Panama Canal was hard enough.
Ya, but the Panama Canal was built 110 years ago. Today there is much better earth moving equipment as well as better construction and civil engineering procedures. If they hired an American civil engineering firm to build the new canal, since it is on flat ground, it potentially be built very quickly!
IMO, the best place to built a new canal isn't Nicaragua. It's Tehuantepec, Mexico.
not if you look at a topographic map
Too high elevations on that isthmus. A transcontinental railroad is once being resurrected and should be operational within two years
When the US was taking about a Panama Canal in the 19th Century, we were taking to Colombia, Panama did not exist as an independent country. It did not become independent until 1903 and only with the US help. Weird and very important thing to gloss over. 🤷🏻♂️
TWO MINUTE scripted ads seriously suck.
I'm not opposed to ads to support a channel, heck, I have them on mine.
But 120 seconds is excessive.
New canals bypassing existing trade routes are so hot right now.
If they were planning on digging 90% of the thing anyway then why would they still go through lake Nicaragua? Wouldn’t it make more sense to build it where it wouldn’t risk contaminating their fresh water. The only reason to use the lake was that it would make it cheaper by using natural rivers.
I think this project was cancelled because the corporations didn't want to see the Panama Canal lose money/business, that's all. Many corporations hate competition and this is one of example.
One thing that is not mentioned, is there going to be a lock system to raise and lower the ships 🚢 or keep the same water elevation at each end and use the tide to move the ships 🚢 from one ocean to the another.
Suez Canal does this.
Also what do you do with the lake's fresh water 💧 if the Canal is kept at sea levels on both ends 🤔 ???
Nothing said about that 😮.
The Suez canal connects salt water to salt water. What happens when salt water in canal meets fresh water in lake?
@@roberthughes7237 that is the question 🤔. Do you make the Canal a sea level to sea level connection or do a lock and dam Canal to retain the fresh water 💧 🤔???
This answer is what needs to be discussed.
Great report. I did not know about the French action.
You should talk about the qiddiya city project in saudi arabia.
It's been overdone already.
Claims the Panama Canal toll for a big ship can cost "half a million dollars". Displays on screen "$500M USD", which is 1000 times more.
Tolls for a neomax containership can be as high as $1mil....this is for a guaranteed on-arrival passage slot. Expensive to be sure but cheaper than waiting 10 days.
China should build one canal for EACH two-ocean coastal Central American countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, plus Mexico and Columbia (sorry for El Salvador and Belize). Thenceforth, each of them can engage in free-and-fair market competition. 😉
and while we're at it .... another channel Northwest Passage! But be sure to move Polar Bears and seal pups first.
Excellent still-motion photography pictures/drawings/maps. Enabling viewers to better understand what the orator is describing-!!!🤗. Much tariff .money 💰 made on those canal systems-!!!
Nicaragua would be doing something pathbreaking by initiating a canal like Panama.
Break it into three "parts". Lake, Pacific Canal, Atlantic Canal.
EACH worked on for "long term". Build what you Can, now. All three half done? Link em easy.
3:58 You totally left out the fact that all of those Central American countries gained independence as part of the First Mexican Empire
perhaps Nicaragua needs an equivalent to the Civilian Conservation Corps that built numerous projects across the U.S. right after the Depression
My grandfather helped lead in the US Army construction of the Panama Canal.
In other words you have relatives in Panama😂
@@Maweresistance 😂😂😂 I dunno my grandfather was married and very religious, he was actually the entertainment director 😂. Go figure 😂
My cousin and my great grandfather, great grandmother and my cousin wife left Barbados 🇧🇧 to help build the Panama 🇵🇦 canal . That how I have family members there back then. Even a cousin left Barbados 🇧🇧 to Panama 🇵🇦 in the 1880s when the French was building it . He return to Barbados 🇧🇧 in 1889 when the French stop building it.
I am surprised anyone was willing to invest at all in the canal, since the last 2 canals were 'entitled' into the hands of the locals. But given Nicaragua's inability to build it themselves, it shows the previous canal taking countries should not have acted so entitled about it, because they never would have been able to build it themselves.
Imagine if money had gone towards this, instead of being continually wasted on weapons to keep the Ukrainian war going!
It was the Soviet Union that was trying to push the Nicarauga canal, as a counterweight to the US during the Cold War. Not Russia. Factual error.
Good job...just need to work on the lighting for your "studio."
The French failed because they thought they could dig a trench there like they did in Suez, which was impossible because the mountain range kept closing the gap they dug. It had to be done with locks and a lake but the french had no plan in that direction, ergo , failure.
There should be a optional canal , for many reasons. Actually 3 canals would be good.
A great idea, but with people standing in the way, exceptionally difficult to accomplish, isn’t it?
Always remember the environmentalists and biologists saying they didn't want the Atlantic and Pacific joined there because of the different species in each ocean mixing and creating problems.
Good job on this video. But fake dust and scratches is very distracting and annoying!
With the Panama canel slowly dying due to vital watersheds feeding it going dry.
I can see another canel systems or two being build by the Americans funded by Blackrock or Vanguard some where in the region. Most likely Costa Rica or Nicaragua.
Canal not canel
Vanguard is a broker and fund manager.
They can't build, it goes against their core business which is shock and awe
Dont forget about the Artic passageway. Now becoming useable as well. And the Mexico rail system
Consider a canal at grade - meaning no lock system. That would be a game changer and a huge engineering challenge.
The lake has an elevation of 107 feet. It'll take a bunch of locks.
@@jackbelk8527 Yes and there in lies the problem with the lock design. I could be wrong, but I believe the Panama Canal was originally started by the French with an 'at grade' approach. If the lock system and fresh water lakes could be avoided then the result would be a superior canal though the engineering challenge to do this would be monumental. I presume that the ocean levels on each side of such a canal would not be the same elevation.
Each lock = time = money.
The reduction of locks is where the money is.
As someone who has family that would get displaced by this project, I'm obviously against it.
Ortega is going to do a massive land grab and steal my family and many other family's farmland to make this canal. Unlike the American landgrabs where the government is obligated to pay for the land, Nicaraguan government can just take the land and leave you with nothing.
Plus, as mentioned in the video, an enormous amount of Nicaraguans rely on Lago de Nicaragua for fresh drinking water. Having that lake invaded by the dense salt water of the Gulf of Mexico would ruin the drinking supply for thousands of people.
Also, one of the volcanoes that make up the island in Lago de Nicaragua is an active volcano that has erupted not too long ago. Its twin is dormant, but with one of the two island volcanoes in that very lake being an active volcano, that will definitely hinder the project and cause doubts among shipping companies to use a potentially volatile shipping route.
Why not just a port on one side linked by railroad to a port on the other side. It’s gotta be quicker and cheaper especially with all the containers. That would then leave the canal to tankers.
Pick anyplace that has the best terrain for the ports and rail.
Dear, once again very nice video. Thanks. But please I'm interested in the content, not in the adds for some VPN. With that many subscribers you don't need it.
Very informative!
The world needs it that’s for sure
Panama needs to build a second cannel to accommodate increased shipping and larger vessels.
The *_FRESH WATER_* is the primary concern here. The majority of the population lives near the lake and depend upon it for their drinking water. Contamination of the lake would be catastrophic for the economy, and far worse, the people.
We are going to have to do something because the Panama Canal is losing function. There has been talk about a train project across Mexico. But another canal would probably be better so that the cargo doesn't need to be loaded and unloaded.
Any new canal should build to be at sea level so they do not have the same problem as the Panama Canal.
Impossible. Sea level is not the same between the 2 great oceans and you would probably have to dig 100s of feet down and that would drain and destroy lake Nicaragua.
@@skiv12276 The difference is a rather small 8 inches or so between the two bodies of water. This is enough to cause a massive series of storms at the tip of South America, but if a giant channel could be built in theory, it would require a very simple single lock at the end. This is why Nicaragua was so keen on the idea. They have a route to the Lake already, naturally, and even with the elevation change, it's only a 100 ft drop from the lake down to the Pacific. So 2 to 3 locks is all you would need. Engineering-wise, using the river is a dead-simple proposition as the optimal place to build it would be farther north, near the city of Rivas. This appears to be a natural break in the mountain range.
@@plektosgaming it might be 8 inches. But are the tides the same. Definitely not. The cape cod canal is only 6 miles long, but has 2 different tides at either end which causes extreme currents. That’s just from a tiny canal connecting 2 bays. Taking away the fact the land rises hundred feet in middle of Nicaragua. I was commenting how it’s impossible to build without locks.
@@skiv12276 It definitely needs locks. But logistically there is a path where the elevation change is only a bit over 100ft and bypasses the mountains. That said, the pollution from the ships 24 hours a day would be bad for their environment.
@@plektosgaming The Panama Canal has an 85 foot rise. Nicaragua canal would take 107 feet, so more locks.
$50 billion project, well, thats just 1/3 of the money the US gave Ukraine.
Good article.
You would think Ortega would have no problem getting funding from the CCCP and others but he has a bad Rep among the honest traders in the world. Maybe soon it will happen but that's still a tough uphill battle.
Thank you
Here's an idea. A canal through the middle of the United States. Think about it.
I wonder if they don’t realize that Mexico has already renovated a railway system called the tren Transistmico or trans-isthmic train and parallel highway to transport goods arriving from Asia to a modernized and enlarged port in Oaxaca on the Pacific coast across the thin isthmus to the port of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz. Plus there will be 10 industrial parks to be built along this route for added value on the goods being transported. Already huge ferry boats are ready to transport hundreds of cargo containers from Veracruz to Mobile Alabama and railway networks can also transport goods northward to the U.S..
Or the shipscould just offload at a west coast port in the U.S.
@@katieandkevinsears7724 then across all the states in between, thousands of miles to reach the Atlantic coast!
0:56 "It can cost half a million dollars" shows $500 million on screen
my great grandfather helped to build the Panama Canal...
More the merrier fair trade for all . Companys can use thier brains according to the weather seasons.
Nicaragua must protect that lake for today and for the future of Nicaraguans who live by as the only fresh water lake depended upon and all the endangered species it would devastate. Solution? Who really knows? East canada chiming in.
When they have the $$ I'll believe it.
It is foolish to invest into the unstable country. That's why most eastern european oligarchs don't invest their wealth into their own countries. They know that when political regime change, they can loose everything in a snap of a finger. They choose to invest into european economies that has been stable for a long time.
Nicaragay could invest 5-10% of their GDP into this project a decades ago if country truly believed into it. Investers would come left and right along the way as they see progress. At the end Nicaragau invest in itself, its future, and prosperity of future generarions. It was said that they could double their GDP by completion of the project. This project should be considered major country development project but instead we can see how fool of bs they are.
very interesting story. Thank you
If the water control system in the Panama Cannel worked correctly they would have no water loss at all simply pump it out to Containers and back in do not allow any water to pass from High to low reuse it over and over only evaporation would be the only loss.
love your video
I don't see it as a rival. The Panama canal can't handle the traffic alone so why not have a second route?
There certainly is a need for another option. This needs to be addressed, and done!
Good news, Panama charges an outrages price to go through the canal, now they have competition.
Won't be long before we have the Texas, Mexico canal!
Mexico is now owning the distribution from the pacific to the atlantic and viceversa
Good video but the pop up sound affects are a little irritating.
NO. Just a reduced amount of traffic.
I'd rather see a saltwater canal-border built between Mexico and the USA.
The nice thing about doing this is new ports could be constructed along the line and create lots of jobs.
Considering that Texas is becoming a major hub for space ports there is opportunity for creating direct Space to Sea links.
The other opportunity is to utilize underground spent oil fields as an underground deep-well hydro storage. It is possible to hydraulically push fresh water with salt water without salt transferring to fresh and vice versa. The energy storage project could help with the costs of carving in-land through shared infrastructure.
The Rio Grande could be piped under the canal.
Just my two cents
Do you mean dredging the Rio Grande, then building a canal from El Paso to Yuma?
What if a chain of boxes were dug, from A to B, the dug fill added to wall height, the distance between boxes measured for base distribution, and ships propellers, aimed at the turf dividers are blasted, creating a quick dig. Mexico could build a canal using this method. Minimizing environmental destruction keeping crews focused on managed areas, no expensive fill hauling by rail or truck. The higher dikes would protect the environment if sensitive to noise and industry polution. If beginning from both ends, each box could be finished out with ships bringing suppliers in a cheap option to the overland costs.
cant imagine what a bad news will be for panama if they actually build it. anyway I dont think they will soon
On Google Earth the land to the south and East of the lake looks fairly flat and there is a kilometer or two between the lake and the border. It would make sense to build a canal there rather than using the lake.
If each country did more of their own manufacturing there wouldn't be so much shipping traffic. Limiting traffic through the Panama Canal would probably be beneficial in the long run. Only as much traffic as the fresh water ecosystem of Panama will tolerate safely.
It would need locks on the lake to stop seawater entering the
Lake !