The Nicaragua Canals

Deleted member 92195

The proposal to build a canal along the shortest width in the Americas is well documented. Before the Panama Canal was built, the US toyed and tried to build a canal in the 1850s in Nicaragua and Panama. (then apart of Columbia) However, all US attempts faltered and the US sought no requirement to build any canal at that time.

If a US president saw the economic and military potential in building multiple canals and admitting the territory as a state, it would turn out to be an odd and intriguing state, because of its disfiguration caused by building so many canals in Nicaragua. This should have been James K. Polk's signature policy in running for a 'second term' because by 1849 he had become the most successful and able US presidents pre-civil war.

The image below shows the six canal line plans that were drawn. I have excluded two because of overlap, they are the blue and purple lines. I don't see why you would want interconnecting canals between the black-green and the red-yellow. It will not increase ship throughput from the east coast only sub-divide the land.

Nicaragua canals 2.png


The image below shows the black, green, red and yellow overlays with the canals configurations clearly visible. You can see why they wanted to build a canal along the blue overlay, there is a river running between the black and green overlays. However, there is no such river along the purple overlay. Despite this, there is a river that runs close and north to the yellow canal. It could be connected to the yellow canal as the black and green overlays are connected to the north-west.

Nicaragua canals.png


When looking at the image above, I marvel at US imperialism...:eek:
 
Workable Goblin

Workable Goblin

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Why on Earth would one build more than one canal?
Click to expand...
More capacity? This would be relevant if the amount of seaborne trade was much higher than it is today, or even equivalent but with smaller vessels. At that point any one canal could be bottlenecked, and you might see efforts to build parallel canals to increase the throughput of ships across the isthmus. Hard to see how you can get that to happen in the past, though, short of some totally unrelated PoD like "Song industrialization".
 

pjmidd

Given you would need to dredge a channel in Lake Nicaragua for a decent ship size , no point building more than one. Multiple canals also cause issues with the availability of the Lake to replenish its levels, every canal will lower the level as its the main feed reservoir for all of them.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Use locks to raise and lower ships. Pound locks were used in China from @1000 C.E. and Europe by 1450 C.E.

Pacific side of the Cordilleras average 40+inches/100+cm per year. It is the dry side of the country.
 

Deleted member 92195

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Why on Earth would one build more than one canal?
Click to expand...

The idea of building multiple canals came to me when I was studying the geography of the earth, upon which I applied geopolitics to one of my projects. By building a canal you are changing the geopolitical configuration, which is not supposed to happen. My reason for wanting to build multiple canals was to increase the amount of throughput trade from the Pacific to Atlantic and vice versa. Purely capitalism which falls within the USA's capitalism mantra. This map is all the canals finished, however, I really believe that the canals would be built over a period of time and not all at once. The only way you're going to get that amount of trade flowing through the canals is for all of the European trade to go through the canals to Asia. However, the idea is actually more compatible with the modern day or 2100 than in 1850.

pjmidd said:
Given you would need to dredge a channel in Lake Nicaragua for a decent ship size, no point building more than one. Multiple canals also cause issues with the availability of the Lake to replenish its levels, every canal will lower the level as its the main feed reservoir for all of them.
Click to expand...

With the Panama canal, they built an artificial lake, which I have not included but because there are four canals the artificial lake would be much larger or there would be more than one. This should counter the need to replenish the Nicaragua Lake.
 

pjmidd

Grand Archduke of Austria said:
With the Panama canal, they built an artificial lake, which I have not included but because there are four canals the artificial lake would be much larger or there would be more than one. This should counter the need to replenish the Nicaragua Lake.
Click to expand...
Think you would end up robbing Peter to pay Paul, most of the places to put lakes either would mainly be fed from Lake Nicaragua or would divert water that normally flows into the Lake
 

SwampTiger

Banned
I am a bit confused by the reference to Lake Nicaragua/Cocibolca and an artificial lake. The watershed includes Lago Managua/Xolotlan and Presa Las Canoas. The latter is partially artificial due to a dike across the exit. Are you suggesting creating another lake in the valley, or expanding either of these? Managua/Xolotlan is bordered by a large percentage of Nicaragua's population. Flooding has caused major disruptions in the area. Presa Las Canoas will back up past Teustepe in a large populated valley.
 

Deleted member 92195

pjmidd said:
Think you would end up robbing Peter to pay Paul, most of the places to put lakes either would mainly be fed from Lake Nicaragua or would divert water that normally flows into the Lake
Click to expand...

SwampTiger said:
I am a bit confused by the reference to Lake Nicaragua/Cocibolca and an artificial lake. The watershed includes Lago Managua/Xolotlan and Presa Las Canoas. The latter is partially artificial due to a dike across the exit. Are you suggesting creating another lake in the valley, or expanding either of these? Managua/Xolotlan is bordered by a large percentage of Nicaragua's population. Flooding has caused major disruptions in the area. Presa Las Canoas will back up past Teustepe in a large populated valley.
Click to expand...

The artificial lakes would be man-made. I think it is one of the pivotal reasons why they picked Panama, the width of the Isthmus of Panama is so narrow it gives ease of access to funnel the water into actually making the lake. Whereas the width between the Atlantic Ocean and Nicaragua Lake is twice as thick as the Isthmus. Here are some modern pictures of such an artificial lake, as they were trying to build a Nicaragua canal.

Pic1.jpg


Pic2.jpg


In terms of where to build the artificial lakes to power the canal locks in relation to these four canals. The river that runs between the green-black canals, where the blue overlay is drawn is the best candidate for those two. The red-yellow canals artificial lake candidate is peculiar because of the position of the lakes. The best 'start' position would be where the red overlay makes a 'V' shape, it would then trail over the top of the yellow canal, steeping south-east and then east towards the Atlantic Ocean. It has to do this because the yellow canal is so close to the border and has no space on the canal's opposite side for the reservoir.

The outline of the artificial lake on the second image is really precise. I'll use that as a base plate when integrating into the image.

I must add, the small canal on the Pacific side will have eight sets of locks. Four locks for those ships that are on the Nicaragua lake going to the Pacific Ocean and another four locks for those ships going from the Pacific Ocean to sail for one of the three/four canals.

I definitely think they will name each canal after famous Americans.XD
 

Deleted member 92195

Hello again. There is a lot more going on in this map below. This map is not just a map about where electric power would come from to power the canal locks but it is also a comprehensive map about all the proposed canals through history. See colour coded text below for explanations.

All Nicaragua Canals.png


Black, Dark Green, Red, Yellow and Dark blue are all in my original plan to make a trading system of canals.

Light Pink: This is in the bottom right-hand corner. This was proposed in the original plan of 1849-51 when the US was thinking of building a canal in Nicaragua. The dam would be built just below it, as it breaks and goes upwards. This would be on the mouth entrance to the small island. (The Rio Colorado River would still have to be built up for the water to flow.)

Light Red: Again in the bottom right-hand corner. This is another configuration of this canal but just up one-third inland of the Rio Colorado River. This time the dams would be placed where the two rivers separate and on the mouth of the original Rio Colorado River. (The Rio Colorado River would still have to be built up for the water to flow.)

Light Green: This canal is an alternative to the Dark blue canal.

The Purple canal is the most intriguing because it connects Lake Nicaragua to Lake Managua, making it one super freshwater lake. I think the Orange canal is another alternative to the Dark Blue and Light green canals.

Artifical lake for Red canal: This is the current proposed canal line and artificial lake this is being proposed and the dams would be placed within it.

Artifical lake for Black and Dark Green canals: Probably the reason why these two canal lines have not got much attention. I have widened the stream into a river and placed a lake between the two canals. The dam would be built on the rivers mouth entrance into the lake. Water discharge would stream back out through small streams back the black and Green canals.

The Yellow canal with the Light Pink variation on the Atlantic side with a similar Dark blue canal on the Pacific side was the initial canal being proposed during Polk's presidency. As the canals are built Americans will migrate there. You could well see post-Polk presidents seeing opportunity in unused land. If you want to urbanize large pieces of land then any of canals would accomplish that goal. Polk simply has to believe that future presidents would build these canals. He would have to buy more land than he would need to build just one canal. At first sight, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Regan are the types of presidents that would build such megaprojects. I only say this because I am not educated much on any of the others.
 
GauchoBadger

GauchoBadger

I could see the Soviet Union negotiating with Sandinist Nicaragua sometime around the late Cold War (here extended, assuming the USSR’s economic decline is averted enough as to allow them to finance such a project), lending patronage to build it in order to compete with the US-sponsored Panama Canal. Alternatively, if US-China hostilities continue and develop similarly to a new Cold War, China could be the one to sponsor the Nicaragua Canal (IIRC, it was a Chinese company that led the consortium for the project at the middle of Daniel Ortega’s presidency).
Overall, i think a global scenario of intense conflict between two superpowers is the most propense for such a thing as another Central American canal to be built, and i’m afraid such a configuration is only possible after 1900.
 
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