New canal to be built in Central America
 

Earlier this month, Nicaragua confirmed its intention to build a new canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This new canal will be twice deeper than the existing Panama canal and will be able to accomodate the latest generation of giant container ships of 250,000 tons (the Panama canal can only manage ships of 65,000 tons max, which is too small for modern international commerce).
The new project is welcomed by the US since it will allow trips between the US east and west coasts to be one day shorter, it's also welcomed by the EU, China and Japan since it will allow a direct secured route between East Asia and Europe for giant container ships instead of the current route through the troubled regions of South-East and South-West Asia.

Map of the canal

The bad think it's that affects the ecology, I was watching a documentary
on History Channel, and so many litters of water are wasted in the Panama's Canal.
It really affects the ecology.

Too bad most people care more about money than the environment.. I guess they think like - "I'll be dead before serious effects take place" but then again, their kids and grandkids will suffer anyway.. Such egoists :rolleyes:

Well, pollution is caused by ships, not canals. Some shipping companies use sub-standard cargo ships that pollute a lot, but canal or no canal won't change anything to that, those ships will continue to sail somewhere anyway. What is needed is stricter international regulations so sub-standard ships will be decommissioned.

An ultra-modern giant container ship pollutes a lot less than the 8 or 9 old cargo ships it can replace (just like a bus pollutes a lot less than the multiple cars needed to transport the same number of people), so in that respect, having a modern canal allowing those giant ships to travel between the Atlantic and the Pacific will result in less pollution than continuing to use multiple smaller cargo ships.

One of those giant container ships, 400m long, 170,000tons, built in the Danish shipyards.

Yes and no.. If those bigger ships can go through the canal too, they don't have to sail around South America, which will save loads and loads of fuel.. But it'll increase polution in Central America anyway :bum:

Not only the pollution, but the waste of water, everytime they open the floodgates
thousands of litters of water are verted to the sea. The use water from a big lake I don't remember the name...
+ Pollution - water = :bum:

It has to be said though... 2 stroke diesel engines (which ships use as a rule) are highly less polutant and way more efficient than 4 stroke diesels used in cars.

A short BBC video shot earlier today showing this brand new giant container ship, the Emma Maersk, back from its first trip to China with 13,000 containers full of products for Europe's Christmas shopping season. :)