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A consortium of environmental scientists has expressed strong concern about the impact of a controversial Central American canal across Nicaragua.
The path of the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will cut through Lake Cocibolca (aka Lake Nicaragua), Central America's main freshwater reservoir and the largest tropical freshwater lake of the Americas; this plan will force the relocation of indigenous populations and impact a fragile ecosystem, including species at risk of extinction, according to Rice University environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez and other members of the consortium.
Alvarez is co-corresponding author of an article that includes 21 co-authors from 18 institutions in the United States and Central and South America who gathered at a multidisciplinary international workshop in Managua, Nicaragua, last November to discuss the project. The paper, titled "Scientists Raise Alarms About Fast Tracking of Transoceanic Canal Through Nicaragua," was published this week by the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-scientists-nicaragua-canal.html
[Abstract]: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b00215
[Source]: http://news.rice.edu/2015/03/04/scientists-question-rush-to-build-canal-2/
(Score: 4, Interesting) by martyb on Friday March 06 2015, @12:27PM
This is all from memory — does anyone else recall this and/or have links?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by WillAdams on Friday March 06 2015, @12:39PM
Yes, I remember reading that that plan was cooked up, but that due to the concerns you cited never got past the drawing board.
Here's a search result which cites it: http://www.wired.com/2009/04/yourfriendatom/ [wired.com]
it was part of the "Plowshare Program" to re-purpose nuclear munitions.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Friday March 06 2015, @01:30PM
Well, among many other reasons, every single time the US has had anything to do with Nicaragua or any of its neighbors in the last century, a lot of people were killed. That tends to dampen their enthusiasm for US involvement in, well, anything.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by gnuman on Friday March 06 2015, @03:56PM
Maybe US had plans, but USSR actually implemented them.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_uranium27.htm [bibliotecapleyades.net]
In summary, during its 20-year life, the U.S. Plowshare Program carried out twelve field experiments, six nuclear cratering events, and six contained explosions. Only four Plowshare events were conducted off the Nevada Test Site, one to better understand the effects of a nuclear explosion in salt and three for nuclear gas stimulation.
....
During a period of some 23 years between 1965 and 1988, the Soviet Union's "Program for the Utilization of Nuclear Explosions in the National Economy" carried out 122 nuclear explosions to study and put into industrial use some 13 applications.
So, if you are interested, read up. USSR used nukes everywhere. From rail construction to agricultural reservoir construction. Wikipedia only has a brief overview of the above paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Friday March 06 2015, @07:10PM
Operation Plowshares, which was an attempt by the US military (along with their defense contractor pals) to find a non war use for nukes as it had recently been disclosed that pretty much every scenario they come up with had nukes being a worthless weapon thanks to MAD. Its been awhile since I read up on Plowshares but IIRC they also looked into using a bomb in the KT range to put out coal seam fires along with using KT bombs to drill out tunnels for railroad and car usage. This was also around the time they started talking about Project Orion, building a spacecraft powered by nuclear bombs. At the end of the day the flaws with these ideas were pretty damned obvious, anything you built using nukes would be hot as hell and unlike regular explosives its pretty damned hard to create a nuclear shape charge. But I was always fascinated by how batshit things were then, look up the nuclear mortar they built sometime, right up there with an atomic hand grenade on dumb fucking ideas.
As for TFA? We can bitch and moan but ultimately its up to the people of Nicaragua whether it gets built or not. these arguments kinda remind me of how we bitch about how much pollution India and China create as they become modernized while ignoring we too used a shitload of pollution to get where we are. If we are gonna try to tell Nicaragua what they can and can't build we should be offering some financial incentive to make this idea less attractive, just saying "you can't do that, its bad for the environment" just strikes me as being a bunch of hypocrites.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @10:45PM
AC here. I bothered.
Deal with it.