The Surprising Efficiency of Canal Locks

I enjoyed this well made video illustrating how it works: [link] And this one explaining how reservoirs can be used to trade-off water consumption for land requirements using side ponds: ▶ this video

in “Panama Canal is so congested that one ship owner just paid $4M to skip the line” · View on HN

For anyone interested in how the new (bigger) locks use less water than the old locks (reclaiming 60% of the water - without pumps!), this old Practical Engineering video explains with diagrams: ▶ this video They store the water in a series of basins at different levels, and use those basins to fill the portion of the lock below. It's more obvious with diagrams.

in “Panama Canal Draught Restrictions Spark Liner Surcharges” · View on HN

> without saying anything about which one is used how and where I agree that it is strangely edited. But to help you out with the info: both are used on the Panama canal. There are two paralel sets of locks, the older ones and a more modern ones. The more modern ones can fit a bit bigger ships and they are more efficient with water. This is a wikipedia page about the expansion project (the one which also constructed these more modern locks): [link] And here is a video on how one can construct a “water saving lock” from Practical Engineering: ▶ this video

in “Panama Canal drought forces Maersk to start using land bridge for Oceania cargo” · View on HN

They do pump water out and back into the locks from neighboring storage. There is a limit to the minimum amount of water that you can use, though, since the potential energy to raise the ship comes from the loss of water. ▶ this video

in “A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal” · View on HN