Why The Panama Canal Is In Serious Trouble

Picture this: more than 200 vessels are waiting in front of the gateway to the world: The Panama Canal. A maritime logjam of historic proportions, all eagerly awaiting their turn to traverse the famed canal. Almost an unthinkable situation right?
The reason behind this is even more mind blowing. Would you expect these ships to be waiting because of a shortage of water? But this story has many more snags. Yet, the prospects grow bleaker still, as the Panama Canal Authority has made the unprecedented move of slashing the number of permitted transits by a staggering 50% in the early months of 2024.

[@UbberMapper]

This is good content...its cool that i get to be 1 of your first 100 subs...you will go far i am sure.

[@StarrDust0]

idiotic design to depend on water from the Gatun lake, when they have oceans on both sides.

[@glennberry1012]

did u study history

[@UbberMapper]

The reason they are using the lake is because the lake is higher than everything else which means they can use gravity to feed everything instead of big expensive pumps. Also, Gatun lake is a fresh water lake. If they used pumps to fill the locks from the ocean then they would be constantly letting in large amounts of Salt water thus changing the entire eco system. Yes, their is an ecological impacts in the opposite way doing what they have been doing but the oceans are so big that its almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. All that said, it does seam like a temporary stop gap would be to employ large pumps to pump water from the locks back into Gatun lake instead of letting it spill into the ocean.

[@richardbambenek2601]

That would require massive pumps to fill the locks. By using Lake Gatun no pumps are needed to fill or empty the locks. The issue now is Panama is in the middle of a drought that fills the lake.