I was under the impression that building more solar into the grid was the reason for putting up solar panels and preventing evaporation was a side benefit of their placement.
Did I read this wrong?
Do you really believe this?
It reminds me of the joke about an economist that doesn't pick up $100 off the ground, because if it was a real bill, somebody else would have already picked it up.
In all seriousness, people really seem to gloss over the “in the long run” part of that hypothesis.
So I'm always surprised when I encounter someone on HN that's not on the lookout for these opportunities.
This feels like a worse version of the whole 'the plan to fix the problem isn't perfect, so lets do nothing' I see a lot.
It does confuse me though. It's clearly not the primary goal of adding the panels, but a side benefit.
Because of the droughts and increased population, preventing evaporation has become a lot more important today than it was 50 or even 20 years ago.
> Reading many of the comments it sounds like preventing evaporation is the major reason for this.
That's the important part of the paragraph. I'm not asking about the evaporation, so much as why that's what everyone seems to thing the point of building the solar panels is? I would expect they were going to build them anyways, and the prevention of evaporation seems to be a bonus. But reading the other comments, it would appear that's a wrong assumption.
> reduce algae growth and the need for maintenance by limiting sunlight falling on the water
Evaporation is an issue, for sure, but so is the cost of keeping algae under control. It makes a lot of sense to trade algae for solar panels even if you have to maintain the solar panels.
Other benefits are just bonus's of their placement.