Yes, its the lock to go from a river to an inter-river canal that is the one that would normally need pumping ... a bypass canal can almost always be built to simply fill up with the flow of the river ... but unless you are nominating a more energy efficient way for river barges can go from one river system to another, I am puzzled as to how that is not what I just said.

River boats have enough energy efficiency per ton of freight that we can readily consider home-grown biodiesel as a sustainable liquid fuel source ... as opposed to the fantasy of using biodiesel as a plug and play for petrodiesel for the existing truck-based freight system ... and having wind assist like above makes it an even better prospect.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.