'Cecil’s column prompts me to ask a question I’ve been wondering for sometime, “Why has no new canal been built?” Cecil wrote that a new canal would cost tens of billions of dollars. This seems within the budget of an oil company or of a nation such as China.
That was tens of billions of dollars in 1988. Twenty years of inflation is going to increase that quite a bit. I have no knowledge in the area, but I would have thought that it is simply not worth it. Cecil also points out various practical problems, while also omitting the rather obvious point that the last canal caused huge political problems, which I don’t think have really gone away.
The expansion is expected to cost $5 billlion.
The canal earns about $500 million per year but the amount charged is based on ship size so a larger canal should earn more money.
Building a new canal would not require the same yellow fever eradication program.
Convincing a country to allow it’s construction would not entail having Panama secede from Columbia.
Exxon made $40 billion last year in net profits.
Just look at a few made-up numbers:
Just for the sake of argument we assume that the new canal has about the same revenue as the current one. Let’s take the $500 million you mentioned. Actually that seems pretty optimistic because both canals would compete for the same customers and a new canal in itself does not neccessarily create any additional demand.
Cecil mentioned “tens of billions of dollars.” Let’s assume $20 billion in current dollars.
Even if the numbers look big that would be a pretty pathetic annual rate of return - not to mention that it would take years until a canal makes any money at all.
Of course the result changes if you assume different numbers and it might be sufficiently profitable in real life, but it’s not hard to imagine reasons why it might not be.
Besides all of which, soon the Panama Canal will be competing with the newly-thawed Northwest Passage.
Being within a budget doesn’t mean it’s a wise expenditure. Why would building another canal pay off that investment? What advantage would it bring to those who built it?
Why exactly do you think a new one is really needed, given the fact that the Panama Canal is now being expanded to accommodate much larger ships? The main current problem with the Panama Canal is that the locks are too small for many ships. Most of the difficulties will be solved with the construction of the new third set of locks, which will accommodate much larger ships than at present, plus widening of the Canal channel.
Besides Panama, there aren’t too many other feasible places to put a new one.
The idea for a Nicaragua Canal has also recently been revived. The projected cost is about $18 billion, but of course could be more.
Colombia has suggested putting one through the Atrato region, but I think that is mainly just hot air.
Just about the only other remotely feasible place would be the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico, and I don’t really see that one happening either.
I recall reading that a Nicaraguan Canal was favored over Panama because they could have largely made use of natural waterways and thus kept costs down but that Panama won out because Nicaragua was more eartquake-prone.
You know, if we just transformed the Rio Grande into a new canal, a lot of problems would be solved at once. 
You mean, like the water-rights problems? Yep, having to keep the water in the canal would definitely keep the farmers from fighting over it.
The Nicaraguan Canal also would have been closer to the US. It was favored by many in the US in the late nineteenth century, especially because the US had had much greater political involvement there than in Panama.
The proponents of the Panama Canal in the late 1800s did make much of the earthquake issue. They distributed Nicaraguan stamps showing an erupting volcano, and a picture of a centuries-old colonial arch in Panama that was so badly designed that the fact that it had survived proved the region had no significant earthquakes.
Head of the line priviledges. The highest fee ever paid was to prevent a seven day waiting period. Although I don’t know if this was before the implemention of reservations. If China built it on leased land then China’s ships would have no waiting period, hence reduced cost.
How long before the new Panama Canal locks are too small? A rule of thumb for roadways is that by the time it’s completed it is already obsolete.
The Nicaraguan route would provide a larger supply of water for the locks.
And when the heck are they going to install an exact change lane? 
You are always exactly changing from one ocean to another.
They could sell magnetic cards, call it E-Sea Pass.
I really doubt that’s going to be a major economic advantage given the overall costs.
I also find it almost impossible to imagine that China or another nation financing such a project would want to deal with the kind of international ill-will such preferential treatment would elicit. The US did not give preferential treatment to it’s own ships when it was under US control.
I would also note that one of the major factors in the US building the Panama Canal was strategic. The US wanted to be able to shift its warships between oceans as quickly as possible. Economic considerations were secondary.
Won’t that apply to any new canal as well? If not, why not?
Cite?
You still haven’t provided any compelling reason why a new canal should be built.
I’ve also read that many ships today simply won’t fit in the Canal. Is that true?
The biggest class of ship that can fit the Canal’s current locks are called “Panamax”, and can only be 965 feet long which in this day and age is starting to seem on the small side, especially compared to VLCC and ULCC oil ships.
Yes. That’s why Panama is currently building a new set of super-sized locks to accommodate bigger ships, and also widening and deepening the Canal itself. We had a national referendum in 2006 to undertake the project, which passed.
Here’s more on the Canal expansion project.
The new locks will be 1,400 ft long by 180 ft wide and 60 ft deep. Current dimensions are 1,000 ft by 110 ft by about 40 ft.
You can see from this list of the world’s longest ships that this is well in excess of the length of all operational ships today. (The largest supertanker listed, the Knock Nevis, is a Floating Storage and Offloading unit rather than a ship that actually goes anywhere.)
Just thought I’d mention that Richard Halliburton paid 36 cents American to swim across the Canal in 1928. That’s the record for lowest toll paid.
Tolls are levied by weight, I believe.