“A man, a plan, a canal — Panama!”, said Leigh Mercer.
The man with the plan this time is Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, who wants to build a second Atlantic–Pacific canal, capable of taking ships of greater capacity than the Panamax limits. The OilPrice story says that the canal would be more than three times as long as the Panama, with (if I understand it correctly) 130 miles of cut and 50 in Lake Nicaragua:
[…] the proposed canal could take 11 years to build, cost $40 billion and require digging roughly 130 miles of channel.
[…] the canal’s proposed locks will require 1.7 billion gallons of water per day, given that the channel will be 200 feet deep in places.
Mr Ortega hopes that China will fund the construction, which suggests that he is rather more optimistic about the Chinese economy than some others are. However, it is a thought, and one that the Inter-Agency Group on the Ulster Canal might wish to consider.
This week’s quiz: which ocean lies at the western end of the Panama Canal?
well, if they’d fixed the Ulster Canal by now, all those G8 Conference bigwigs could’ve arrived that their luxury hotel by narrowboat, having sailed all the way from the Giant’s Causeway. Or something. Erm…..
They could have sailed across the atlantical sea by narrowboat. bjg
Caribbean Sea / Atlantic – great one to start a row at a pub quiz, so best asked early on in the night :)
Excellent. You may claim the Westminster Gazette prize [which may be a glass of sherry]. bjg