Good to know. I wonder when it will be up to capacity.
There seems to be a connection between GCC and the increasing frequency of El Niño events.
Climate Change Now a Major Factor in Formation of El Niño - Yale E360.
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Modeling/forecasting precipitation is not really ready for prime time. As you know, clouds are probably the hardest part of climate models.
As far as El Niño/ENSO frequency goes, the models have a lot of noise and the scientific debate continues.
"The IPCC report [AR6] also noted that a higher number of El Niño events in the last 20-30 years have been associated with temperature changes that are stronger in the central Pacific rather than the east.
But those differences don’t necessarily mean that human-caused climate change is behind them (there’s that nuance!). The instrumental record and paleoclimate proxy evidence (coral, tree rings, sediment cores) all show that throughout the Holocene (the last 11,700 years), ENSO has displayed all sorts of different patterns and amplitudes. There is no clear evidence that any changes since 1950 in ENSO are all that unusual.
Plus, climate model simulations that do not include rising greenhouse gases produce similarly large variations in ENSO behavior over long periods of time due solely to the chaotic nature of the climate system.
DB2
The authors suggest this could mean the Northwest Passage is unlikely to become a viable alternative to traditional shipping routes, despite previous hopes that it may become viable due to global warming.
DB2
This
is currently going ahead with a lot of adjacent investment (manufacturing sites, warehousing, and other infrastructure).
I own bare land in the Oaxacan mountains a little north of Salina Cruz, the Pacific harbor terminus of the cargo train canal substitute.
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Thanks for the post - I’m just not a believer. I don’t think the savings or value is there. Are you thinking this is really going to happen and going to be worthwhile? I would be interested in knowing the average time for a ship to arrive on the east coast and transit the locks and head out on the west coast. I recognize this can take days. But to arrive - offload cargo - load cargo on trains - unload cargo from trains - load cargo and then depart seems to be a weeks sort of thing.
Your thoughts?
JimA
The Mexican effort makes sense because it combines major internal development with doing trans-isthmus transit infrastructure, basically using the current rapidly increasing need for Panama alternate as an opportunity to accomplish a lot more that is even more important. Mexico is attempting to do ship to train to ship loading cleverly efficiently, and we shall see. But a high quality high capacity trans isthmus train makes sense regardless of Panama. Rail transit is CRITICAL for Mexico’s future, as Mexico lacks waterways, and is overwhelmingly difficult for truck transport due to mountainous terrain almost everywhere.
Long term I expect
- Panama gets fixed up with things like
a. alterations in water law/infrastructure so more rainwater can be used for the canal locks despite GCC & higher traffic,
b. improved locks that waste less water per passage
c. other stuff I know nothing about - the Nicaraguan “ground level” canal finally happens, despite now blocked by total corruption, incompetence, and dingy Chinese connections
- Northwest Passage usage accelerates
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Is this a ‘thing’ that is actually in progress? I had seen suggestions; but never anything concrete.
JimA
Certainly it can make some sense internally but it needs be faster and cheaper. And now a ship arrives on the east coast and you need a second ship on the west coast to receive the shipment. Perhaps this is a good sign for my shipping companies investment?
JimA
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Well, depends on what you mean by concrete. The Chinese effort generated some significantly detailed planning and even some budgeting, but no work has been done, and I would be amazed if anything happens until the heinous Ortega clan is dead or exiled.
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The word ‘concrete’ speaks for itself. 
So I would be thinking actual digging or some kind of non-office work. Is there an actual proposed route? I’ve tried to picture how that would work. Presumably Lake Nicaragua is deep enough for transit?
JimA
That might be part of it, but possibly the lesser part. With a rail network it allows a ship to unload on the West Coast of Mexico and directly transship to the US rail network through San Diego, LA, or wherever there might be a convenient nexus. The traffic ends up anywhere in the US, just as it does now when going through the Canal and unloading on the US west coast.
Likewise ships from Brazil or Africa could port on the Eastern shore of Mexico and unload and “ship” to the West coast of the USA. At the moment those ships have to go through the Panama Canal (one way or the other, respectively). With a cross rail network in Mexico some of that could be eliminated, and possibly save money to boot, while also providing thousands of jobs in Mexico and revenues for the government.
Exactly. And the optimistic vision is that Mexico is embarking on finally, after more than a century of dithering, on that crucial infrastructure, beginning with the politically chosen trans-isthmus route that AMLO promised his home state long ago. The crux route would connect, via much higher speed rails, the South through to Mexico City environs, and then on to the North via totally rebuilding the ancient El Camino Real that dates back to pre-Aztec times.
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Good points; that I had not considered. But that is not then a direct competitor to the Panama Canal which would be shipping to and from Europe and Asia. If they are just going to an coastal port and then trains to distribution points in the US, why not just a US Port? Those ports are already there and the infrastructure is already in place.
JimA
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Not all shipments would be destined for the US. Factories in Mexicio would receive shipments from China and elsewhere to be used in products “Made in Mexico” and could then be sent to the country of sale–which might not be the US. Adding more ports with substantial capacity along the Pacific Coast also reduces risks to the North American economy should any port have problems (think along the lines of the Baltimore port when the Dali took out the bridge). That issue was fairly quick and easy to resolve. Imagine something more catastrophic at a major Pacific port serving the US…
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Why bother unloading ships at a west coast port of Mexico if the cargo is destined for the USA? Why not simply unload the ship at a west coast US port?
Again, why bother with Mexico in this case? Why not simply unload the ship at a US port in the Gulf of Mexico (The “eastern shore of Mexico”).
Cost and availability. Presumably the dock workers in Mexico will be far cheaper than those in Los Angeles or Seattle. Or, going the other way, than Houston or South Carolina (Virginia, etc.) It can cost the larger ships up to $300,000 for one way passage through the canal (and of course they have to go two ways, eventually), plus the Canal is so busy that there’s no an auction system in which some slots are reserved and are bid to move you to the front of the line. That’s an extra $750,000 per trip for some. And there are docking fees at LA which presumably are higher than they would be at a Mexican port. It adds up.
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, for example, are notorious for their congestion; ships often wait days to enter the port - and going through the Canal can make that worse, with days’ wait to get through, especially now that traffic is restricted because of low water levels.
It’s obvious that Mexico should have been on this decades ago, but now (finally) with the coming of an industrial base along its northern border with the US, a commercial freight infrastructure is a necessity, and adding port capabilities likewise. Does China really want to build cars in Mexico only to have to transship them through the US to take them by boat to South America?
Well, technically. But if they stop a ship from going through Panama by offering port and rail services through Mexico, I think the Canal authorities would view that as “competition”, even if there’s nothing they can do about it. (They can, but it’s tinkering around the edges: less water loss per transit, widen the narrowest sections, etc.) People didn’t think bicycles were competition for the automobile. Now, in some urban areas, they do.
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Do not forget that Panama has a limited capacity due to its need for rainfall, always a limitation, and now GCC seems to be cutting what rainfall was there. More capacity will be needed unless the world backs way far off from global trade, always a possibility with our contagion of political stupidity and insanity world wide.
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Maybe part of the GCC solution is NOT shipping every little thing and all the little parts that go into every big thing halfway across the world. A few months ago I posted about the absurdity of not being able to license a smelting plant in the USA, so they ship the raw ore to Asia, smelt it there, and then ship the raw product back. Sometimes that raw product gets subdivided and shipped AGAIN to a factory somewhere to get assembled into an actual end product. And then that end product AGAIN gets shipped all over the place.
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It could be done–but at what cost? It all comes down to $$$. Yes, NIMBY does have a role, but that would only be in densely populated areas.