The Panama Canal will limit daily vessel traffic from September 3, the Pnama Canal Authority said Thursday, as a severe drought fuelled by El Nino depletes water supplies needed to operate the vital…
I never knew the canal relied on rainwater. It makes sense, all rivers go to the sea eventually, and filling locks requires either pumps or water that’s already uphill I suppose. Just never thought about it.
The Panama Canal’s locks, at least the newer ones, have these separate basins they can drain water into that gets more ship lifts out of each lock volume’s worth of water. No water is pumped uphill. I kinda wonder if it would be viable to 1. cover those ponds in solar panels and 2. use the power generated to pump water from lower locks into higher ones. On the theory that you could save evaporation from the sun by shading the pools, and pumping water uphill means spilling less into the ocean. It’s likely expensive but so was the canal itself.
I never knew the canal relied on rainwater. It makes sense, all rivers go to the sea eventually, and filling locks requires either pumps or water that’s already uphill I suppose. Just never thought about it.
The Panama Canal’s locks, at least the newer ones, have these separate basins they can drain water into that gets more ship lifts out of each lock volume’s worth of water. No water is pumped uphill. I kinda wonder if it would be viable to 1. cover those ponds in solar panels and 2. use the power generated to pump water from lower locks into higher ones. On the theory that you could save evaporation from the sun by shading the pools, and pumping water uphill means spilling less into the ocean. It’s likely expensive but so was the canal itself.