NewScientist (15 April 2017) notes the Nicaragua canal appears to be a go, despite ecological concerns:
Map: Fresh Fruit Portal
It will carve a 273-kilometre channel through the small Central American country to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean – even though the Panama Canal, 1000 kilometres to the south, already does the job, and received a massive upgrade less than a year ago.
Why the duplication? Proponents of the canal say it will ease congestion that the upgrade can’t address, and create new economic opportunities for Nicaragua. By shortening journeys, it could even help stem the rise in the shipping industry’s share of global carbon emissions, which could reach 17 per cent by mid-century. …
Unsurprisingly protests ensued, delaying construction. The project has enraged Nicaraguan ecologists. Its most outspoken critic is Jorge Huete-Perez at the University of Central America in Managua, a former president of the country’s Academy of Sciences. Huete-Perez told New Scientist the canal would cut through biosphere reserves and destroy 4000 square kilometres of rainforests and wetlands. He also warned it would decimate coastal coral, mangroves and beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs – as well as inundating the villages of several indigenous forest tribes. “The canal project represents the worst nightmare for Nicaraguan conservationists,” he says.
Fears are perhaps greatest for Lake Nicaragua. Spanning almost half the width of the country, it is the nation’s chief source of fresh water. More than 100 kilometres of it lies on the canal’s route, requiring a trench three times the lake’s existing depth to be built. That will “irreversibly alter the aquatic environment of Nicaragua,” says Axel Meyer of the University of Konstanz in Germany.
But while it’s a fascinating project, I must admit this part of the report really grabbed my attention:
There may be one last, slim hope for opponents of the canals: an altogether different way for ships to get between oceans. Engineers in South Korea say it might be easier, and more environmentally friendly, to span the relatively flat Kra isthmus with a railway sturdy enough to carry ships weighing up to 100,000 tonnes (not much smaller than the Panama Canal now takes). The Korea Railroad Research Institute, which has pioneered the idea of these so-called “dry canals”, suggested earlier last year that it could be built for a quarter of the cost of the Thai canal. A similar project has been proposed in Honduras, just north of Nicaragua.
Dry canals bring fascinating visuals to mind, although it appears no one has put evocative pictures online. Hofstra University reports they’re a hot topic these day in Central America, with 7 either proposed or actual operational dry canals, although from the description most of them are not on the scale of the proposed Nicaragua dry canal – they mention road connections and the like. Putting an entire ship on a railroad car – of magnificent proportion – just boggles the mind a bit. But how to power the passage – a railway engine seems both inadequate and inglorious. I envision two trackways with suitable separation, capstans of marvelous size, and some manner to connect the powerplants of the ships themselves to the ropes using the capstans, and then each ship might be able to power the others passage.
No doubt some killjoy will point out a flaw in my scheme.
