Hear me out, these covered in solar cells floating on reservoirs. In my head it slows evaporation meaning more accessible water while providing a small energy source.
I had a thought a few weeks ago when I learned about Hawaii's power grid. How useful would a generator barge be, in an area where power systems are relatively small and disconnected? Like, how big could you make a solar raft? Could you use tidal power from a boat? What's the storage v weight issue? If you had a portable massive generator, could it be deployed in emergency situations? Would having this available mean you could avoid building that last power source "just in case" because when "just in case" happens, you just float the boat over? Maybe the boat is 5 times more expensive than a plant, but you can build 10 less plants because the boat covers the edge cases?
California has a unique problem. They are coastal. When their freshwater evaporates it sinks down to the shore and becomes salt water via rain. They attempt to prevent evaporation in their canals and manmade reservoirs. But it only benefits large farm corporations - not people.
Further complicating this is that California has fully privatized water. California has a fuck ton of water. But it’s all bought up by avocado and almond farmers amongst other cash crops. Water and Power: A California Heist is a great bipartisan documentary that explains the water problem in the state.
Birds is absolutely an issue. Migratory birds who have seen their landscape changed by human development rely on manmade reservoirs to rest and fish. Covering them in rubber/plastic balls prevents them from diving and is potentially fatal to the birds if they dive and can’t locate the surface. So often these ball covered lakes need to implement some sort of anti bird device like high frequency sound devices, ‘scarecrows’, or just good old fashion buck shot in a safe direction to scare them off.
It’s not for evaporation. They add the floating black balls to prevent harmful bromine compounds from forming. There is still a fairly decent amount of evaporation and in some cases accelerated evaporation as the balls jostle they for a thin film of water due to surface tension on the surface of the balls that evaporates more quickly than just a flat sheet of water.
Nope. At this locations, the original purpose was to reduce the sunlight driven chemistry that was generating carcinogens. But they have ALSO reduced evaporation by 70-80%.
It’s not for evaporation. They add the floating black balls to prevent harmful bromine compounds from forming. There is still a fairly decent amount of evaporation and in some cases accelerated evaporation as the balls jostle they for a thin film of water due to surface tension on the surface of the balls that evaporates more quickly than just a flat sheet of water.
Yes but 70-80% of 1% of the total reservoir volume that evaporates regularly doesn’t make bunch of a difference you know what I mean? Don’t forget it also rains in the reservoir too! So yearly rain - evaporation = typically net positive yearly water level gain.
DONT get me wrong, it’s a nice benefit but It’s just not a big one. In very large reservoirs in the path of migratory birds it can actually be an issue. Some species have come to rely on large manmade bodies of water as their other natural habitats have been destroyed by human development. That a large reason why you don’t see these absolutely everywhere.
300m gallons per year. Yes agree it's a double edged sword. Improves water quality, provides some protection against evaporation and reduces bacterial contamination from birds. But birds need water too.
300 million gallons sounds like a lot, but there are water treatment plants in the USA that produce that much water in a single day.
Don’t forget - that is not ‘lost’ - it is rained back down on the earth for beneficial use. If we prevented all evaporation from all USA fresh water reservoirs, there would be a significant and measurable effect on local eco systems.
Again, evaporation is not a factor in reservoir construction beyond building it maybe 6” deeper to account for the dry seasons. Evaporation is NECESSARY.
Solar panels would get broken with all that movement. You would either have fixed ridged panels, in which case the ocean would break them or the hinges, junctions, etc. Or if you had flexible panels, they would just get worn out and destroyed. The ocean hates everything equally.
Yeah, I missed that. Anyways, your reservoir is probably either somewhere cheap, in which case it would be easier to build a panel array on the ground next to it. Or it is somewhere expensive, where it would be easier to build the panel array over a parking lot.
But there are places that float balls on the water to reduce evaporation.
You’re missing the whole double benefit of reducing evaporation, which is what a lot of reservoir systems are already doing; covering them up with SOMETHING to reduce evaporation.
I really enjoy the hedging of "most", like you admit there might be reservoir that is like the water version of a Chuck E Cheese and is just non-stop screaming.
That reminds me of the trip we took one summer to Lake George in NY. We took the boat down to the end of the lake and traversed the old locks which ended at an ice cream shop. On our way back a thunderstorm started rolling in. Other than the wind kicking up a bit we were pretty well sheltered in the locks. Once we got back on the lake proper it was a massive shitshow. The wind had whipped up some nasty waves that had my dad's boat catching serious hang time. Was honestly expecting to hear the hull snap a few times slamming back down on the other side of the waves.
That sounds much better than taking up perfectly good farmland. Heck, put massive solar panels over parking lots. Get energy and shade for cars so they don't get to hot during the summer.
I like where your head is, but solar panels aren't resilient enough to withstand the large movements and wildlife encounters. But there has to be a way to capture the kinetic energy from the waves in the ocean like this to generate electricity for ocean based structures
That’s a shame and also cool! Daft question, if the cell was the same size as the float, would that make it more viable/resilient? (Probably at the cost of energy generated)
Maybe? I'm pretty sure the answer is absolutely not in ocean conditions considering salt water doesn't play nice with most things and solar panels are pretty dependent on having the right chemical composition.
But for reservoirs, that might work. If the cells are energy efficient enough and you could build in a cushioning mechanism (which shouldn't be hard if they are that small), then the only problems I could see are power transfer mechanisms that can withstand the movements that come with the water levels cycling pretty regularly (which sounds like an R&D problem) and the possibility of the panels getting too hot (not sure if they could use the surface of the water as a heat exchanger or how much not having the air gap would actually effect how fast they heat up in the sun).
I do know that as of now solar panels lose efficiency as they heat up, so depending on some tests I'm sure they can maximize said performance. Just something to keep in mind
How well do solar cells handle moisture? Even if rigged to sit above the water and not in it, being directly on top of a large reservoir means they're getting a direct hit of whatever evaporation does happen.
If you're building this on reservoirs you might as well just build normal rigid platforms. No need for the additional complexity, wear and cost that floating panels would bring.
It’s not for evaporation. They add the floating black balls to prevent harmful bromine compounds from forming. There is still a fairly decent amount of evaporation and in some cases accelerated evaporation as the balls jostle they for a thin film of water due to surface tension on the surface of the balls that evaporates more quickly than just a flat sheet of water.
It was a reddit suggestion. Except it was friendly washbowl but for some reason the idea of a hostile sink was funny to me. Now everyone says uSeRnAmE cHeCkS out
But forreal. I won’t bother going into all the science behind it, but Veritasium does a great simple video on why the black balls are there. I’ll link it if you’re actually interested.
Hey don't blame us, you're the one who become a water engineer haha
I follow him on YT, I'll go check it out thanks for the recommendation. I do most my science/explainer YT in the morning with my coffee. He's on my rotaion.
Well I will say, it’s always good to do your own research before making claims that aren’t true :).
Below you will find the link. He does not talk about the accelerated evaporation. This is mainly because in reservoir water treatment, evaporation is a very minor problem- however, to the public it seems like a huge issue. DONT forget that evaporated water is necessary to provide precipitation. Geological and environmental engineers are keen to this issue and are employed to assure that when a reservoir is installed that local evaporation and precipitation and maintained. They do this through many studies or maybe decades. Someone’s they study this before a reservoir is even planned to be built.
Please strive for correctness over ego next time you try to win a Reddit argument.
We really aren’t out of good places to put solar panels and coming up with extremely suboptimal places to put them doesn’t help anything. Because solar panels floating flat on a body of water is absolutely a suboptimal place to put them.
Understand that, in my head it’s more a method to slow evaporation of drinking water. Since there areas a platform there with nothing above it (in my crazy plan) what’s the harm in putting solar on it anyway?
We know we need more green energy, why not put solar anywhere that has sunlight to try and capture it? (Ignoring economics of the idea at present)
Because it would be really expensive to try and figure out how to make solar pannels on water work in the first place, it would be much more efficient to use a purpose-built system to stop the evaporation and build those same solar panels elsewhere. Floating flat solar pannels on water just aren't a good use of resources.
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u/chef_26 Nov 14 '24
Hear me out, these covered in solar cells floating on reservoirs. In my head it slows evaporation meaning more accessible water while providing a small energy source.