Custom Search
Nicaragua plans rival canal route
Submitted by Pete on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 15:04.
Nicaragua has announced plans to build a waterway linking the Pacific and Atlantic that would carry bigger ships than the existing Panama Canal.
President Enrique Bolanos said the new route - which would cost $18bn (£9.5bn) and take 12 years to complete - was needed for the rise in world shipping.
Source - BBC News Americas
Old News............
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Panama has started the expansion of their canal with Supersize capabilities.......Nica canal never happens...JMO
NicaLand Grand Canal, six years no more than Ten.
RichMcClure
?
I just saw an article on Ortega meeting up with Torrijos of Panama, Ortega claims that Nicaraguas Canal will not compete with the Panama canal.
The article does not say anything more than this, so I am curious to know why Ortega assumes that it won't compete?
The numbers support that
The current Panama Canal is pretty much saturated. The reason for the expansion is two-fold: handle larger ships and support more traffic.
If there was more capacity (both size and volume) today, there would be greater demand. That is, many businesses will have different choices. The Nicaragua option can result in a different business decision even if the Panama Canal wasn't saturated. For example, being closer to the US, it could be a better option for shipping products from eastern Honduras to California than by truck across Honduras and then by boat.
Certainly there would be "either option is ok" for some routes (between Florida and Lima, for example) but it is likely traffic growth will make this unimportant.
Um, no...
Let's use Panama Canal numbers and just plug them into the proposed Nicaragua Boondogg -- er, Canal.
If you apply those numbers to the proposed Nicaragua Canal, you're looking at 25+ years for payback, and 12 years (if you believe that) before the project ever brings in a dime. You have environmental issues, you have the fact that a genocidal child-molester has been returned to power by an underwhelming 38% making some likely investors of billions a bit uneasy, the ever-present corruption at every level of a project like this here -- the whole thing adds up to:
BOONDOGGLE
We don't have all the facts but they will.
Many large ships can't use the Panama Canal and the large ships are were the money is. The new addition to the Panama Canal will be able to handle most of them for awhile but they are building bigger ships every year.
The people who will be financing the Nicaragua Canal will know exactly how much money is involved and they won't build it if it doesn't all work out on paper.
Ye of little faith
If everyone had fretted so over the cost, environmental concerns, return on investment, and the horrendous loss of life (over 27,000 dead) over building the Panama Canal, it would never have been built.
Re:Ye of little faith
Faith doesn't come into play when making economic and enviromental decisions........Two Canals in such close proximity would make no sense....one canal is all thats needed after the upgrade of the Panama canal...........Why carve up the country to satisfy the greed of a few.....
Sir Gordo
Shadows of doubt for the entrepreneurial investment to move forward on the NicaLand Grand Canal project with the signing of the Panama Canal expansion, coupled with the Nica elections.
John's post is correct the cost is irrelevant. The U.S. built the Panama Canal and she generously turned it over to the Panamanian people, and I believe she will do the same in Nicaragua, with only long-term treaty guarantees and some concessions.
The U.S. preference would be that it's built by private investors. If and when the U.S. would make such a proposal, besides the Nica' President and Senate approval, She will require a high majority approval vote from the people for such a dramatic altering of their country, its new world status and to consider their own future and culture.
The estimated construction cost of 20 Billion is about the monetary costs for 4 months in Iraq at current US deployment levels. As She tries to foster some form of democracy,If and when the Iraqi people commit themselves to a democratically run government coexisting with their diverse religious ideologies, only then will they have the strength and tolerance to band together to successfully step up to their own plate and defend it (and that's a big IF, and a whole nother blog) For that's when the U.S. can refocus her attention.
You're right it doesn't take much faith, just a little forward thinking.
10 to 20 years from now, the Panama Canal may become monopolized by China, they already have the port concession on the Canal, a second Canal would greatly reduce the pressure of this scenario, one of the reasons they would monopolize, even with the expansion it's not big enough to handle the expanding shipping Commerce from Asia and the Pacific coast of South, Central, and North America etc.. They're all competing for the same markets.
And that is only one of a myriad of scenarios, I'm sure the Pentagon think tank's have considered in their forward thinking.
The future stability of Commerce, will outweigh the present construction costs.
In thinking of the benefits and non of the sustaining financial boost that will come from a project like this, and the fallout opportunities and opportunists.
With a work force ready willing and trainable, its own natural resources, and in close proximity to other countries natural resources, I can see in less than 20 years Lake Nicaragua will become the largest and most strategically located protected harbor in the world, attracting major shipbuilders as well as other industries, it already has the potential with its rich fertile farmlands to be the breadbasket of the Caribbean.
Bright futures for Nica children.
RichMcClure
Two thoughts
Thought #1:
He knows there will never be a canal in Nicaragua so it could never actually compete.
Thought #2:
He's so incredibly misinformed as to be "stoooopid".
Padre I cannot
Choose between the 2 thoughts, you put me in trouble.
They are both very trueful, how can I choose???? :-)
NICALIBRE Jacko
Nicaragua Canal what?
I was in a conference in Babson College last april when a lady/executive of one of the largest shipping companies in the world was talking about her career and business perspective in the world of maritime cargo. I asked her in front of all present what was her opinion on a posible canal project in Nicaragua..., she answered she hadn't heard anything about the subject. I guess whoever is promoting this project is not reaching the right people...the people with the $$$.
Canal publicity
I'm sure that most of the other executives with that shipping company know about the proposed canal Martin. Not a day goes by that there isn't an article about it. Here's one of today's:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6069022.stm#map
This article had some interesting examples of other large projects in the world. Some were built , some weren't.
Does this change the plan?
Panama approves $5.25 billion canal expansion
No
Non what so ever. The panama plan is like putting a bandage on the wound, it helps, but it really dont fix the whole problem. As a sailor waiting in line for entrance to the canal system I would say I know something. Tha waiting time is the killer for Panama, imagine ships laying there at 3o-40.000& a day or more. The worlds shipping industry changed to a Panmax system ( max 80.000 DWT ) with weight and measurement restrictions. Their new canal is a no fix system, read shipping news. However the Nicaraguan canal can take huge ships up to 250.000 DWT and can carry so many more containers and shorten their time to the Carribean, no wait and cheaper rate. Roger
Not supposed to
There's room for both
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061022/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/panama_canal_refer...
Official Site...
The official site for the Canal is : www.grancanal.gob.ni
All the info regarding the Canal is on there....
Official?
That Site doesn't have all of the info 111. It doesn't even mention the proposed sea level route.
". . . It enters the San Juan River at the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border and follows that river west into Lake Nicaragua [or Cocibolco]. It then crosses Lake Nicaragua northward to the Tipitapa River near Granada. It then follows the Tipitapa River into Lake Managua [or Xolotlan], then crosses Lake Managua northward, where it is linked northward to the Gulf of Fonseca [or Chorotega], entering the Gulf to the east of the Cosguina Peninsula via a long, dredged canal.." http://wais.stanford.edu/Nicaragua/nicaragua_andproposedcanal4902.html
....
The info on the site is OFFICIAL.....if you check out the route section...it states that there were six different routes considered and that the Commission that was appointed by the President has recommended going with route three....
All of the details can be found on the project docs:
Perfil del Proyecto(Spanish only)
Okay
but it doesn't mention who would profit from some of these routes. I had a couple more of these URL's about different politicians who have already bought land. Here's one of them.
http://americas.irc-online.org/articles/2002/0204transport_body.html
Good argument
Read the docs. I was surprised with the route but the numbers seem to add up. The unknown, of course, is what Panama will do with their proposed expansion. But, no matter what they do, the Nicaragua route will be shorter for much of the traffic.
If MA were here
He'd promote Pete to RePete.
Someone posted that subject just the other day. http://www.nicaliving.com/node/6678
maybe it's time for john wayne .....
to do a new honorary miskito alan promotions/demotion list?
Just The Other Day
It was just the other day someone posted an article about the presidential elections in Nicaragua.
Not only that,
There was a post on airfares, a post on importing cars, a post on travelling to Nicaragua via another country, a post on dichos, and some silly pictures. Dang, nothing's new under the sun.
Another article
The Register has another article about the project. It makes is sound far from a done deal. It also includes a bit of interesting history.
This article, while not about this particular proposal, talks about why a Nicaragua canal makes sense. Namely, because Nicaragua is the only place where a canal without locks could be built.
Finally, this dry canal article talks about the 1996 plans for a canal that were "going to happen next year".
Nicaragua was the original
Nicaragua was the original (geographically and topographically better) location before the panama canal was built. The robber barons of the day (Cornholio Vanderbilt was one) could not get it together there for reasons which I am either not familiar, or rather, the reasons given seemed glossed over and/or only lightly explained.
It is obviously a better place for a canal. That it is cut three quarters of the way through naturally and that no locks are needed made it a more sensible choice. Had to be politics; has to be more than one story for the reason they went to panama.
Uh, huh huh...Butthead
he said Cornholio, huh huh.
Yeah Beavis, that was cool. Cornholio.
Ahhh Nicc....
ara-gua, ahhh ahhh Nic-ara-gua, butthole. Yeah, I saw that episode...Nicaragua became famous in that demographic market. Interesting!
Panama was the original
The reason people were scared off is in almost every article on the subject. It was a postage stamp with a volcano on it is that made them choose Panama. Historically Panama was the 1st choice anyway.
". . . . . . it was suggested c.1524 to Charles V, that by cutting out a piece of land somewhere in Panama, the trips would be made shorter"
and once again
"In 1879, de Lesseps proposed a sea level canal through Panama. With the success he had with the construction of the Suez Canal. . . . . Although de Lesseps was not an engineer, he was appointed chairman for the construction of the Panama Canal. . . . . . . . . . . He believed that if a sea-level canal worked when constructing the Suez Canal, it must work for the Panama Canal." http://www.eclipse.co.uk/~sl5763/panama.htm#History
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here's a condensed version taken from: http://www.june29.com/Tyler/nonfiction/pan2.html
The French started it "Work began in 1882 along the route of the 1855 Panama Railroad . . . . . . . . .
In 1885, due to the tremendous problems encountered in trying to excavate a sea-level canal, the plan was changed to include a single, temporary lock . . . . . . Still, it was of no use : in 1889, Lesseps' company was liquidated in order to pay back investors and banks . . . . . . in 1894, a new company, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama, was created in France to attempt to finish the canal. . . . . . .. France had determined that she could not possibly complete the canal. . . . . . the search was on for a buyer. Eventually, France found a friend in the United States of America. . . . . .
Here's where they start to consider Nicaragua:
. . . not a new idea to America, either. In 1887, the government sent a regiment under Lieutenant Menocal to survey Nicaragua for a canal site. In 1889, Congress chartered the Maritime Canal Co, headed by the millionaire J.P. Morgan to build a canal in either Nicaragua or Panama. After discussions, the Nicaragua route was chosen, and construction began.. . . . . . . . . .. President McKinley probably would have signed a bill introduced by Senator J.T. Morgan securing funds for a Nicaraguan canal, had an assassin's bullet not taken his life . . . . .Most of America was still under the impression of the first two Canal Commissions, which advocated Nicaragua, no matter how outdated the findings were. . . . . . . .. . . .In 1902, when Iowan Senator William Hepburn introduced a bill providing for a Nicaraguan canal, Senator John Spooner of Wisconsin attached an amendment that literally reversed the bill, and provided for a canal at Panama instead.
Here's the part about the volcano stamp:
The Senate voted between the Spooner amendment and the original proposal, and with a little help from Philippe playing on the fears of the volcanos along the canal site >*>*>*>(Philippe managed to find fifty copies of a Nicaraguan stamp that depicted the largest of the volcanos near the canal site - 20 miles away - and had one sent to each Senator on the day of the vote)<*<*<*< the Spooner amendment passed without the original Nicaraguan canal proposal. This Spooner Bill promptly passed the House of Representatives, and was signed by Big Stick Roosevelt himself. . . . . . . . . . . .Before any work could begin, the most deadly of the problems on the isthmus had to be overcome - disease. The government wasn't going to allow mortality rates like had been seen during the French reign - somewhere between ten and twenty thousand were estimated to have died at the canal zone between 1882 and 1888. . . . .The most troublesome diseases were the mosquito-carried malaria and yellow fever - the same diseases that had kept Napoleon Bonaparte from putting down the uprising in Hati in 1801 - but almost all diseases known to man were endemic. Tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, bubonic plague - all were cases on file at Panama hospitals in 1904. . . . . . . . . . , but at last the whole of the Canal zone became the pest-free resort area that it remains today, . . . . .
remainder of Panama history
I didn't realize that there was a word limit. Here's the last little bit of my condensed history of Panama:
the Spooner amendment passed without the original Nicaraguan canal proposal. This Spooner Bill promptly passed the House of Representatives, and was signed by Big Stick Roosevelt himself. . . . . . . . . . . .Before any work could begin, the most deadly of the problems on the isthmus had to be overcome - disease. The government wasn't going to allow mortality rates like had been seen during the French reign - somewhere between ten and twenty thousand were estimated to have died at the canal zone between 1882 and 1888. . . . .The most troublesome diseases were the mosquito-carried malaria and yellow fever - the same diseases that had kept Napoleon Bonaparte from putting down the uprising in Hati in 1801 - but almost all diseases known to man were endemic. Tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, bubonic plague - all were cases on file at Panama hospitals in 1904. . . . . . . . . . , but at last the whole of the Canal zone became the pest-free resort area that it remains today, . . . . .