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@salad
The new Panama Canal
The Panama Canal can’t accommodate the gargantuan bulk carriers known as Capesize; no canal can. Yet, it needed to respond to the growth of the more modest ocean workhorses, the container ships that account for 60% of the world’s shipping – a great deal of it between China and the U.S. East Coast. Though a million vessels passed through Panama in the canal’s first 100 years, shipping – like globalization itself – operates on economies of scale. And the scale was outgrowing the canal. A ship 106 ft. (32 m) wide and 965 ft. (294 m) long – the largest ships able to cross the Panama Canal at the moment – can carry around 5,000 containers. Widen the beam to 160 ft. (49 m) and the length to 1,200 ft. (366 m) – the size of a ship that can fit in the new channel – and the container count rises to 13,000. If Panama didn’t make room, those new ships would reach America from China via the wider Suez, imperiling Panama’s surging national economy.
Photograph by George Steinmetz (@geosteinmetz) for TIME. See more images on LightBox.time.com and read Karl Vick’s full report on TIME.com. http://ift.tt/1EbrzH1