I think it's something that perhaps Professor Byers, who knows a lot more about the practical aspects of these things than I do, will also want to comment on.
The immediate advantage, of course, is the one you mentioned, and that's the time. Compared with the Panama Canal—or going the other way, through the Suez Canal—there's a substantial saving in time. Therefore, that has to be attractive to anyone shipping.
The Russians have developed fairly substantially their ability to provide protection for shipping. One of the problems for shipping going into unknown areas is if they have a problem, what do they do? If you go though the Panama Canal and you run into a problem, you have all the way down the coast of the United States and up the coast on the other side with ports you can go into. The problem in the Arctic is there may be nothing. That's what the Russians have done in having ports and having protection, and that makes it very attractive.
I don't know what the current state is now, but Russia, for a period of time, was asking for a very substantial fee for that kind of service. That does raise difficult legal questions about the extent to which you can charge a vessel going through your internal waters and whether you can charge for a service that you provide. If, of course, it's an international strait, as the United States would argue, then you would not be able to make that kind of charge to vessels. As well, of course, that would add to the cost.
On the Canadian side, at the moment it appears that the northern sea route is an easier route. It does not have the navigational difficulties of narrow channels that are involved in the Northwest Passage. Frankly, I don't think we have the infrastructure to provide the kind of current support that the Russians provide to ships going through there. I think they've tried to make it attractive for shipping, but if they put a fee that's too high, it will make it less attractive for shipping.
There are other factors that still have to be worked out. The vessels going through are very much a trial. But what is the long-term insurance cost of having to do something like that?That's a factor that's going to be taken into account, and because of the unknowns...there may be no surface ice, but there may well be ice under the water and hazards that vessels will have to take into account. Those things will have to be worked out to assess the viability of it. But at the moment, I think it would be for a vessel....
Depending on where you go, if you're leaving from Norway, as they were, the northern sea route would be more attractive. If you're leaving from further south, in terms of distance the Northwest Passage might be a more attractive route, if you're comparing distances.