So it seems that my criticism of Egypt hit a cord of sorts among my thousands of readers (no not really not even remotely true). Egypt's fundamental problem is that they are cramming a 111 million population in a habitable land mass the size of Switzerland.
There is a solution, as usual, that involves using other people's money, but it's not entirely insane, it would be to build a 100-kilometre canal between the Mediterranean Sea and something called the Qattara Depression. The depression sits about 60 meters below sea level. The project would create a large water mass and evaporation, which could fall back as rain, would provide arable land in which to settle some of Egypt's population.
While not entirely crazy it has never been done. It is unclear how long it would take for rainfall to create arable land, and even if the arable land would be near the lake. The cost is anywhere between 100 and 150 billion dollars.
Is it a crazy idea, yes and no. Elon Musk's boring company with two machines could dig out a 100-kilometre tunnel in less than 10 years (The boring company's longest tunnel is 3 kilometres long). The problem is the money. Egypt is already broke, and no one knows if flooding the Qattara depression would work (Note: In 2023 the Egyptian government asked an engineering firm to ascertain the possibility). The engineering is not really the issue. The problem is the cost and return.
This is the world's dilemma now. Like Japan, China has a population aging problem. Not only are children not born, older people stick around longer, and need care. Japan is rich and is increasingly relying on robots (eg to turn patients). China is poor. This is an extreme version of a common challenge for the entire planet (except Africa).
Like China, Egypt doesn't have the resources for the project, more importantly with an average birth rate of 2.67, it would only delay the inevitable. An unsolvable tragedy, there will be food riots within the next two years.
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