[HN Gopher] The Rival to the Panama Canal That Was Never Built
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       The Rival to the Panama Canal That Was Never Built
        
       Author : rmason
       Score  : 10 points
       Date   : 2023-08-26 21:36 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | 4rt wrote:
       | The last time this idea was re-floated in the 2010s was in
       | reponse to Panama increasing their transit fees. The fees
       | decreased, making the project financially infeasible again.
       | 
       | It's interesting that its an unnamed Chinese company who seem so
       | keen to keep this concept alive and possibly influence the
       | transit fees still.
        
       | Simulacra wrote:
       | _In the early 1900s, the United States had two options: build a
       | canal across Nicaragua, or, through Panama. The US Senate voted
       | for the Panama option._
       | 
       |  _Estimates of how much it would cost to build a Nicaraguan Canal
       | ...upwards of $40bn_
       | 
       | I looked it up, the Nicaraguan Canal would have been about 170
       | miles, so $40bn for 170 miles. From a modern day engineering
       | standpoint, putting aside lawyers, environmentalists, government,
       | etc. how hard is it to build 170 miles of canal?
        
         | rmason wrote:
         | Mexico's plan to offload containers onto rail cars and then
         | reload them back into ships waiting on the Atlantic side might
         | make more sense financially. Anything heading to US East coast
         | ports could be railed directly saving reloading.
        
         | electricships wrote:
         | Egypt recently completed an extension to the Suez canal
         | 
         | Turkey is also building a canal from the black sea.
         | 
         | you can look up the costs. both of these countries are very
         | regulation-light...
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-26 23:01 UTC)