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faul_sname comments on Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015 - Less Wrong
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Not only the rivers. But also huge tunnels from the sea to the interior cities. like Denver or Munich.
Large container ships may bring goodies deep inside the continents. A whole network of such underground channels would be nice.
Why tunnels, not canals? Particularly in the case of Denver, you've got a huge elevation gain, so you'd need the locks anyway, and digging tunnels is expensive (and buying farmland to put your canal through is relatively cheap).
To avoid the elevation to say Denver, you have to have a "basement" about 1600 meters down. And the port in the basement.
No such a big problem, you have some deeper mines in the world.
You save energy not lifting a cargo ship 1600 meters, but you spend energy lifting the cargo itself. If there are rivers that can be turned into systems of locks it may be cheaper to let water flowing downhill do the lifting for you. Denver is an extreme example, perhaps.
If Denver ships out as much as it imports, weight-wise, pulleys could do much of the work of lifting. If there is a deficit in export weight, you could use the same water you were going to use as downhill flow to weigh down the counterweight.
According to Wikipedia:
You already have to elevate each of those containers (with the train or truck from the coast). An electric elevator would be much more energy efficient than the current solutions are. A litter or so of diesel fuel of electricity per container. Less than 100 kilometers of shipping. Much less than 1000 kilometers of trucking.
Tentatively-- in hot dry country, a tunnel loses less water to evaporation.