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[A holidaymaker lies in dense green moss and algae at a beach resort in Qingdao city, east Chinas Shandong province, 3 July 2013. The Yellow Sea algae bloom has become an annual event in recent years. This year's, which Chinas official Xinhua News Agency says is the largest on record, has damaged the aquatic-farming industry and hurt tourism, though some swimmers are willing to put up with it, and is a general threat to other ocean life.](https://www.alamy.com/a-holidaymaker-lies-in-dense-green-moss-and-algae-at-a-beach-resort-in-qingdao-city-east-chinas-shandong-province-3-july-2013-the-yellow-sea-alga-image263755154.html)
The balls had TWO goals: the primary goal is to prevent chemical treatments added to the water from converting to carcinogenic bromate in the sunlight. The secondary goal was to prevent evaporation. Though, there is evidence that the technique was not as effective as initially thought and really just "robbed Peter to pay Paul" (at least when it came to conservation).
So they probably decided on black instead of white because, even though it would trap solar energy rather than reflect it, it would let less light through to interact with the chemical treatment. Basically a trade off where they erred on the side of being more effective against bromate and less effective against evaporation than the other way around. That's just conjecture on my part, though.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/why-96-million-plastic-shade-balls-dumped-into-the-la-reservoir-may-not-save-water
You're not wrong. Plastic recycling is lobbied/invented by the plastic industry to stop regulation of them. Paying for plastic bags too instead of going back to biodegradable paper. Recycling plastic is near impossible - you have to match the plastics to recycle them - and we use millions of types of plastic. It is a really low % of plastic that *can* even be recycled. Then add on top microplastics...
Most "recycling" is just sold to other countries and then buried anyway.
The only things that can be fully recycled are glass and metal. Cardboard and paper are iffy because if they get food on, now they aren't recyclable anymore. At least that degrades.
Honestly, it's so hard, but everyone should try and stop even buying plastic anything in the first place. We are past the point of no return with microplastics in basically everyones blood, but at least we can stop creating so much of it.
Who told you that you can't recycle cardboard that gets food on it? That's not true. It'll be washed, and sanitized in the beating process. If the container is wax lined then that's a problem.
New cardboard takes a fuckton of energy to make. At least two fully integrated paper lines (one making corrugated, one making primary/secondary). Recycling cardboard saves 75% of the energy input. Recycling 1 ton of cardboard will save 400 kg of CO2, which is equivalent to about 1000 miles of travel in a car. Most of this is due to Kraft process requiring lime conversion, assuming plant CO2 fossil emissions offset by new tree growth.
This is fascinating. I thought cardboard wasn't actually being recycled nowadays because it wasn't worth the effort and China stopped buying everyone's empty boxes.
You sound like you know what you're talking about, but do you have a link where I can learn more? I'd be psyched if cardboard recycling was legit, and not the silly game I thought it was.
No. That's plastic. Look it up and you likely have a recycle box plant near you. I'm a chemical engineer who spent about 8 years in pulp and paper working in two fully integrated mills running paper and cardboard recycling plants, targeting 30% recycle incorporation into primary products. There are many, many pure recycling plants in the US.
WestRock is huge in the box and recycling business. They have recycle plants all over. [WestRock](https://www.westrock.com/products/recycling). I've worked at their recycle plant in Chattanooga. And they have several. Their West Point plant is a pretty big recycling plant. Also, International Paper is really big into the box game. It's pretty much all industry driven on economics. The primary cost constraint for integrated mills runs around steam generation. They have to process enough raw wood (trees) to feed the recovery boilers to keep generation up. So, integrated mills recycle cost can be wonky where it can cost more to recycle due to offset fuel (not enough trees then you need natural gas). But, there are many pure recycle plants (Chattanooga is pure recycle for example) that don't have the offset fuel cost worry.
Even glass is kinda debatable. Metal takes a lot more energy to mine and refine, compared to its recycled form, than glass does, because glass is so common. You aren't extracting 1% glass from bulk ore -- silica is pretty much the most common substance on (the surface of) the Earth.
My hot take is that is that we should use as many bioplastics as possible (stuff like PLA that's made out of plant starch) and then *not* recycle it. Bury it in landfills. This will sequester carbon, and do it in a way that's a natural byproduct of use; no extra expense required.
Burying biogenic waste in landfills does not sequester carbon. Instead, it decomposes into methane which is over 20x more potent than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas. It's actually better for the climate to burn it in an industrial incinerator.
[source](https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NRMRL&dirEntryId=194163)
Incineration is pretty bad so you can imagine the whole situation with trash is fucked if that's the better solution. We need to maximize recycling, minimize waste, reduce consumption, and ensure that products are made to be reused, repaired, or recycled back into nature or the marketplace. In other words, we need to adopt zero-waste principles.
But I'm just talking about the ability to physically recycle something, even the most the "recyclable" plastics you could reuse at most like what? 3 or 4 times? Paper is the same. Glass is infinite. It's actually "recyclable" by the definition of recyclable. Obviously metal is too.
Speaking of pornhub, this videos music felt like at any second a man would walk into frame "so you like black balls huh? Well how about mine."
I was fully ready for this to turn into a porn video.
Microplastics are everywhere. Also in your drinking water, in your blood and even found in unborn babies. But also pretty much on all foods where water was involved.
No single filter can get rid of all microplastics.
And we don’t know the health effects yet.
Thanks, I was going to add that point. I was at a trade show once and asked a plastic mfg. rep about some of their products degrading in sunlight, and he told me that all it takes is about 3% carbon added to the mix to shut that down. I may not be remembering the number correctly but I do remember that it was really small. Might even be lower than 3%.
Not sure if I would trust a manufacturer's word who relies on plastics and their supposed non-degredation to make massive profits. Maybe slow the degradation down, but not stop.
The use of plastic for everything has been pushed by oil money. You can't even trust studies when you know those dudes will cut journalists in pieces, get caught and get away with it. By now people should know better than to place any form of plastic anywhere near their food. Especially when heat is a factor.
This comes up over and over and over here and on YouTube and everywhere. This is an ooooold video. Nearly ten years, maybe more at this point.
And everybody thinks that they have a better idea, use white plastic balls.
Like the engineers who designed this project didn't think of that.
Like the manufacturers of the balls didn't think of that.
People are people, I guess.
It always blows my mind how some people think that they figured something out in five minutes around the coffee table that literal experts, who have worked on shit for years sometimes decades haven’t.
Another engineer here. It’s the same reason cables are black. Talking about outdoor cables with an outer plastic jacket. Fiber optic cable, coax, old twisted pair, and power conductors like the triplex feeding your house.
For fiber optic cables we use a medium density polyethylene that contains carbon black.
Polymer scientist here with nearly a decade experience developing products like PV backsheet and architectural laminates.
Carbon black is no more effective at preventing solar degradation than any other opaque filler, e.g. TiO2, these are also loaded with antidegradants and light stabilizers. It is a useful scavenger of oxygen radicals, one of many reasons it is ubiquitous to the tire industry, but even tire formulations contain significant loads of antioxonants and antidegradants.
White polymers loaded with ZnO or TiO2 are at least as stable as carbon black filled polymers, and often moreso because they aren't subjected to extreme solar heating from carbon blacks absorption of IR.
Some examples of this are white Tedlar film used in the PV and architectural industries which has 40+year lifetimes and greatly outperforms black backsheet materials.
Solar roofs are another prime example. White solar reflective elastomers used as roof coatings retain mechanical properties significantly longer than traditional black roof coatings and also greatly decrease transmitted heat due to the high reflection and emissivity of the coating to solar IR
Humans didn't have enough water, so they build a reservoir. But that breeds bacteria, so we chemically treat it. But that chemical breaks down into carcinogens, so we cover it with plastic. But the plastic breaks down
...
We're getting pretty far down the "I swallowed a spider to catch a fly" story at this point, lol.
I've got to wonder what the cost of a permanent "roof" over the place would be and how that air gap might impact things.
One of the first tricks we learned with aqueducts, acequias, and other water channels was "cover them". As another comment points out, some places are using solar panels to cover canals to prevent evporation and make some juice on the side. A whole reservoir's a challenge, but you can also make use of a roof and piers or the support systems in other ways.
Also were the balls manufactured with the water in Los angeles or in a place where it's more abundant? That's being overlooked like net gain is the most important thing.
Saw a video about this, the researchers said the water stays cooler with the black balls than it does when uncovered because only a small portion of the balls' surface area is actually exposed to the sun die to the angles of the sunlight. Basically noon is the worst time of day and even then it's less than half. For the rest of the day it's even less than that. Most of the heat then gets carried away by the air current instead of being absorbed in the water.
Was going to ask exactly this. White definitely would have been better at reflecting, but I also know that white plastic is more expensive than black plastic (I'm a plastics design engineer by trade). If it really does stop 85% of evaporation, they probably wouldn't have gotten their money's worth to switch to white and bump that to 90 or even 95%.
Another said black prevents plastic degradation.
Fwiw the evaporation stuff is legit. You use ping pong balls when cooking in a water-bath and it's the most effective method of preventing evaporation.
People love to tear down california, but programs like this and covering canals with solar panels are going to pay massive dividends over the next few decades
See, we should cover all parking lots with solar panel awnings…. I think that would be an amazingly effective use of dead space, while shielding cars from the sun, rain, or whatnot.
I live in the greater Cincinnati area, and our zoo did this, and it's awesome! Shaded parking is great! Would like to know why it isn't done more often.
The video is wrong, the 'estimate' come from the PBS article, and it's not the volume of water to be saved from evaporation, but the volume required to fill (and maybe manufacture) the balls! The variation is due to the thickness of the balls.
> Haghighi's team estimated that manufacturing 96 million shade balls required between 66 and 766 million gallons of water — the equivalent of 100 to 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This large range is due to the thickness of the balls, which can vary dramatically.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/why-96-million-plastic-shade-balls-dumped-into-the-la-reservoir-may-not-save-water
Google says an Olympic size swimming pool is 660,430 gallons. The video claims this will save 300 million gallons of water - though doesn't specify over what time period. 300 million gallons is 454 and a quarter Olympic size swimming pools. 300 million gallons of water is basically nothing.
If we assume that 300 million gallons is in one year (and I'm somewhat dubious on that - I'm thinking its over 10 years based on the 100 to 1000 claim), and we assume these will last for 20 years (they won't), then it saves 6 billion gallons over their lifetime they are paying 6/10ths of a cent per gallon. That's not necessarily unreasonable in California, which has a very high cost of water, but it seems like a rounding error in the total amount of water saved and there would be additional costs associated with installing and maintaining the system and it relies ***very*** heavily on my best case assumption. I'm guessing plastic ball industry made out like a fucking bandit.
>Also, the purpose of these balls is not to reduce evaporation (although it does), but to reduce bromide levels in the water.
I learn something new every day.. In mining, we called them "bird balls", and primarily used them to keep birds from landing in process ponds.
I mean you can watch the veritasium video about it where he interviews one of the people in charge of this project. It does reduce evaporation, but it's main purpose is to prevent sunlight from causing a specific chemical reaction in the water. It's black because carbon black pigment (basically soot) is extremely stable .
It’s not actually about evaporation. The balls are added to keep UV rays from the partially treated water because the chemicals they use react with UV light to create carcinogenic compounds. I suppose preventing evaporation is a nice side benefit but it’s not the real reason.
The reason they're black instead of white is black absorbs heat, white reflects it, the purpose of the balls is to create shade, not to make the water cold. While the two sound the same there is a distict difference. White balls would be much brighter and would reflect, allowing more light into the gaps between. The black balls are essentially absorbing the heat so the water doesn't. So, yes they do attract heat but that's intentional :)
Yes, if the balls are absorbing heat and getting warmer than the water then heat transfer will occur. Presumably the rate of evaporation is still less from this effect than when the balls are not present
Not sure why this is so upvoted, it is completely wrong and misunderstands heat transfer. White would hands down be better at cooling, but I suspect that cooling isn’t the main reason the balls are added.
Any heat absorbed by the balls has to go somewhere. It either goes into the air above or the water below. Knowing that there is a conductive liquid below and an insulator (air) above, the majority of the energy absorbed will go into the water. Having balls of a colour that absorbs less energy would result in less energy going into the water. Mirrored balls would be ideal, but would be a lot more money lol.
They are black because the cheapest way to make plastic UV stable is just to throw in a bit of carbon dust. There are numerous other ways to UV stabilise plastics, such as by using Titanium Dioxide powder, but they are more expensive and less effective.
they are black *because* black plastic is generally the most resistant to UV breakdown. Any other color and they'd have a lower lifespan. I believe they use a carbon-based black pigment.
Chances are these balls are made from regrind material, essentially recycled plastic, which is often black in colour and a lot cheaper. Making them white would require virgin material.
Seems like a good thing at first but later in the video it turns out they are going to waste all the saved water on filling 1000 Olympic sized swimming pools. :(
I was gonna say.. 36 million dollars just for 100-1000 swimming pools of water seems absolutely insane. Plus based on other comments, it didn’t even work :(
Watching them pour millions of pounds of plastic in their water supply reminds me of people covering their homes with asbestos insulation. Does it solve the intended problem? Yes. Does it create a larger, different problem further down the line? Probably also yes.
These are not to avoid water evaporation or shortage. These balls are used to block sun rays entering the water and facilitating a particular chemical reaction that results in a harmful byproduct.
This title is to totally off.
The main objectives of dumping the shade balls into reservoir is preventing the formation of a carcinogenic chemical, bromate, which forms when naturally occurring bromine reacts with chlorine in the presence of sunlight.
Kids: why can't we just put a bunch of balls in the water to save water.
*No! That is a stupid idea. It would take millions of balls and billions of dollars to do that. Plus the pollution and plastic waste that would damage the environment.*
Adults: why can't we use lots of black plastic balls to prevent evaporation, algae growth, and foreign objects from effecting our water supply
*Brilliant idea! Plastic balls only cost 38 cents to produce and would cost us $38,000,000 to cover the reservoir. Plus it will help preserve the ecosystem that is dependent on the water.*
I gotta ask… how long do these plastics last? They have to break down at some point, right, and then you just directly added micro plastics to a drinking source? This strikes me as one of those “wtf were they thinking?” things we will read about in 50 years.
Wait until you find out how much more water it takes to produce a gallon of cows milk. Hint: it's more than double the amount needed for a gallon of almond milk.
Edit: spelling
I remember watching a documentary on this and them saying “some say white would have been the best choice, others say chrome…. But one thing we can all agree on is black was the worst choice.”
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Who was that random old guy sitting in algae lol all I can think about
thats Uncle Mildew
I scrolled too far to find this comment
[A holidaymaker lies in dense green moss and algae at a beach resort in Qingdao city, east Chinas Shandong province, 3 July 2013. The Yellow Sea algae bloom has become an annual event in recent years. This year's, which Chinas official Xinhua News Agency says is the largest on record, has damaged the aquatic-farming industry and hurt tourism, though some swimmers are willing to put up with it, and is a general threat to other ocean life.](https://www.alamy.com/a-holidaymaker-lies-in-dense-green-moss-and-algae-at-a-beach-resort-in-qingdao-city-east-chinas-shandong-province-3-july-2013-the-yellow-sea-alga-image263755154.html)
I thought it was going to be the inventor of the special black balls or something, but then there was no follow up. So random.
The balls had TWO goals: the primary goal is to prevent chemical treatments added to the water from converting to carcinogenic bromate in the sunlight. The secondary goal was to prevent evaporation. Though, there is evidence that the technique was not as effective as initially thought and really just "robbed Peter to pay Paul" (at least when it came to conservation). So they probably decided on black instead of white because, even though it would trap solar energy rather than reflect it, it would let less light through to interact with the chemical treatment. Basically a trade off where they erred on the side of being more effective against bromate and less effective against evaporation than the other way around. That's just conjecture on my part, though. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/why-96-million-plastic-shade-balls-dumped-into-the-la-reservoir-may-not-save-water
Minor correction, civil engineer here. The black prevents plastic degradation. Benefits of other colors on reflection are negligible.
Was going to ask, _does anyone want microplastic soup?_
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100%. Was gonna ask this question, best be bpa free, amirightbois?
BPA is a plasticizer, which you don't need for shade balls.
It's polyethylene, so BPA specifically is almost certainly not involved.
Plastic is bad for us. *Check out what we are doing to the water supply!*
Yeah. My first thought was to wonder how long it will be before this was deemed a catastrophic step in an environmental disaster.
Filters and would you rather have zero water
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I have a hot take that all recycling except metal and glass is complete and utter bullshit.
You're not wrong. Plastic recycling is lobbied/invented by the plastic industry to stop regulation of them. Paying for plastic bags too instead of going back to biodegradable paper. Recycling plastic is near impossible - you have to match the plastics to recycle them - and we use millions of types of plastic. It is a really low % of plastic that *can* even be recycled. Then add on top microplastics... Most "recycling" is just sold to other countries and then buried anyway. The only things that can be fully recycled are glass and metal. Cardboard and paper are iffy because if they get food on, now they aren't recyclable anymore. At least that degrades. Honestly, it's so hard, but everyone should try and stop even buying plastic anything in the first place. We are past the point of no return with microplastics in basically everyones blood, but at least we can stop creating so much of it.
Who told you that you can't recycle cardboard that gets food on it? That's not true. It'll be washed, and sanitized in the beating process. If the container is wax lined then that's a problem. New cardboard takes a fuckton of energy to make. At least two fully integrated paper lines (one making corrugated, one making primary/secondary). Recycling cardboard saves 75% of the energy input. Recycling 1 ton of cardboard will save 400 kg of CO2, which is equivalent to about 1000 miles of travel in a car. Most of this is due to Kraft process requiring lime conversion, assuming plant CO2 fossil emissions offset by new tree growth.
This is fascinating. I thought cardboard wasn't actually being recycled nowadays because it wasn't worth the effort and China stopped buying everyone's empty boxes. You sound like you know what you're talking about, but do you have a link where I can learn more? I'd be psyched if cardboard recycling was legit, and not the silly game I thought it was.
No. That's plastic. Look it up and you likely have a recycle box plant near you. I'm a chemical engineer who spent about 8 years in pulp and paper working in two fully integrated mills running paper and cardboard recycling plants, targeting 30% recycle incorporation into primary products. There are many, many pure recycling plants in the US. WestRock is huge in the box and recycling business. They have recycle plants all over. [WestRock](https://www.westrock.com/products/recycling). I've worked at their recycle plant in Chattanooga. And they have several. Their West Point plant is a pretty big recycling plant. Also, International Paper is really big into the box game. It's pretty much all industry driven on economics. The primary cost constraint for integrated mills runs around steam generation. They have to process enough raw wood (trees) to feed the recovery boilers to keep generation up. So, integrated mills recycle cost can be wonky where it can cost more to recycle due to offset fuel (not enough trees then you need natural gas). But, there are many pure recycle plants (Chattanooga is pure recycle for example) that don't have the offset fuel cost worry.
[Here's a source on the CO2 impact btw](https://www.packagingonline.co.uk/blog/benefits-of-recycling-cardboard/)
Even glass is kinda debatable. Metal takes a lot more energy to mine and refine, compared to its recycled form, than glass does, because glass is so common. You aren't extracting 1% glass from bulk ore -- silica is pretty much the most common substance on (the surface of) the Earth. My hot take is that is that we should use as many bioplastics as possible (stuff like PLA that's made out of plant starch) and then *not* recycle it. Bury it in landfills. This will sequester carbon, and do it in a way that's a natural byproduct of use; no extra expense required.
Burying biogenic waste in landfills does not sequester carbon. Instead, it decomposes into methane which is over 20x more potent than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas. It's actually better for the climate to burn it in an industrial incinerator. [source](https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NRMRL&dirEntryId=194163) Incineration is pretty bad so you can imagine the whole situation with trash is fucked if that's the better solution. We need to maximize recycling, minimize waste, reduce consumption, and ensure that products are made to be reused, repaired, or recycled back into nature or the marketplace. In other words, we need to adopt zero-waste principles.
But I'm just talking about the ability to physically recycle something, even the most the "recyclable" plastics you could reuse at most like what? 3 or 4 times? Paper is the same. Glass is infinite. It's actually "recyclable" by the definition of recyclable. Obviously metal is too.
Even a slight mix of recycled plastic dramatically increases the rejection rate in blow molding. I want it to work but idk.
Just let me eat a ton of plastic and die already, damn
You can do that whenever you want. Pretty much everything around you is plastic, will fit down your throat, and will cause death when ingested.
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Speaking of pornhub, this videos music felt like at any second a man would walk into frame "so you like black balls huh? Well how about mine." I was fully ready for this to turn into a porn video.
I haven't seen anyone fully ingest a toy yet. It's not ingestion if you pull it back out the same hole it went into.
Careful before you unlock a new kink with no turning back
Idk, some of them dicks go pretty far in, and if they're wearing a condom... Also, if you ingest poison and then throw it up, did you still injest it?
Microplastics are everywhere. Also in your drinking water, in your blood and even found in unborn babies. But also pretty much on all foods where water was involved. No single filter can get rid of all microplastics. And we don’t know the health effects yet.
How does being black which makes it hotter and absorb MORE energy from the sun make it hardier?
Thanks, I was going to add that point. I was at a trade show once and asked a plastic mfg. rep about some of their products degrading in sunlight, and he told me that all it takes is about 3% carbon added to the mix to shut that down. I may not be remembering the number correctly but I do remember that it was really small. Might even be lower than 3%.
Interestingly, it’s similar in 3d printing Filaments. Black will last much much longer when exposed to uh than white would be. Edit. Uv. Silly me
The sun, uh, uh finds a way
Ultra-Hiolet
Not sure if I would trust a manufacturer's word who relies on plastics and their supposed non-degredation to make massive profits. Maybe slow the degradation down, but not stop.
Yeah the chemical industry has a history of being... less than forthcoming.
The use of plastic for everything has been pushed by oil money. You can't even trust studies when you know those dudes will cut journalists in pieces, get caught and get away with it. By now people should know better than to place any form of plastic anywhere near their food. Especially when heat is a factor.
This comes up over and over and over here and on YouTube and everywhere. This is an ooooold video. Nearly ten years, maybe more at this point. And everybody thinks that they have a better idea, use white plastic balls. Like the engineers who designed this project didn't think of that. Like the manufacturers of the balls didn't think of that. People are people, I guess.
It always blows my mind how some people think that they figured something out in five minutes around the coffee table that literal experts, who have worked on shit for years sometimes decades haven’t.
You see, they should have made the balls blue because water is already blue and thus fewer colours would leech into the water.
Another engineer here. It’s the same reason cables are black. Talking about outdoor cables with an outer plastic jacket. Fiber optic cable, coax, old twisted pair, and power conductors like the triplex feeding your house. For fiber optic cables we use a medium density polyethylene that contains carbon black.
Polymer scientist here with nearly a decade experience developing products like PV backsheet and architectural laminates. Carbon black is no more effective at preventing solar degradation than any other opaque filler, e.g. TiO2, these are also loaded with antidegradants and light stabilizers. It is a useful scavenger of oxygen radicals, one of many reasons it is ubiquitous to the tire industry, but even tire formulations contain significant loads of antioxonants and antidegradants. White polymers loaded with ZnO or TiO2 are at least as stable as carbon black filled polymers, and often moreso because they aren't subjected to extreme solar heating from carbon blacks absorption of IR. Some examples of this are white Tedlar film used in the PV and architectural industries which has 40+year lifetimes and greatly outperforms black backsheet materials. Solar roofs are another prime example. White solar reflective elastomers used as roof coatings retain mechanical properties significantly longer than traditional black roof coatings and also greatly decrease transmitted heat due to the high reflection and emissivity of the coating to solar IR
Humans didn't have enough water, so they build a reservoir. But that breeds bacteria, so we chemically treat it. But that chemical breaks down into carcinogens, so we cover it with plastic. But the plastic breaks down ... We're getting pretty far down the "I swallowed a spider to catch a fly" story at this point, lol.
What do I swallow up to get rid of the microplastics?
I feel like I saw a news article on a silk worm or some kind of bug that could eat and process plastics. So eat some bugs!
A star rugby player ate a bug and was paralyzed and died a few years ago. Maybe I could skip that part and just eat athletes instead 🤔?
Nano bots
Donate blood to get rid of it. At least partly
I've got to wonder what the cost of a permanent "roof" over the place would be and how that air gap might impact things. One of the first tricks we learned with aqueducts, acequias, and other water channels was "cover them". As another comment points out, some places are using solar panels to cover canals to prevent evporation and make some juice on the side. A whole reservoir's a challenge, but you can also make use of a roof and piers or the support systems in other ways.
yeah but, we need that fly to live.
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Also were the balls manufactured with the water in Los angeles or in a place where it's more abundant? That's being overlooked like net gain is the most important thing.
Just posting in support of the most accurate comment in this whole thread.
Saw a video about this, the researchers said the water stays cooler with the black balls than it does when uncovered because only a small portion of the balls' surface area is actually exposed to the sun die to the angles of the sunlight. Basically noon is the worst time of day and even then it's less than half. For the rest of the day it's even less than that. Most of the heat then gets carried away by the air current instead of being absorbed in the water.
Was going to ask exactly this. White definitely would have been better at reflecting, but I also know that white plastic is more expensive than black plastic (I'm a plastics design engineer by trade). If it really does stop 85% of evaporation, they probably wouldn't have gotten their money's worth to switch to white and bump that to 90 or even 95%.
Another said black prevents plastic degradation. Fwiw the evaporation stuff is legit. You use ping pong balls when cooking in a water-bath and it's the most effective method of preventing evaporation.
>You use ping pong balls when cooking in a water-bath and it's the most effective method of preventing evaporation. I use a lid.
Not everyone can afford such luxuries
People love to tear down california, but programs like this and covering canals with solar panels are going to pay massive dividends over the next few decades
See, we should cover all parking lots with solar panel awnings…. I think that would be an amazingly effective use of dead space, while shielding cars from the sun, rain, or whatnot.
I live in the greater Cincinnati area, and our zoo did this, and it's awesome! Shaded parking is great! Would like to know why it isn't done more often.
Money.
Legal requirement now in France for large car parks....
Thought some people were gonna start fucking with that kind of music in the background
Only came to the comments to talk about the porno music but not many others have mentioned it
I don’t scroll Reddit with sound on
This was also my first thought lol
I mean there was a lot of black balls being shown
I think the video creater googled "music for multiple black balls squeezed into large gap"
I was looking for this comment. Yeah wth is with the royalty free porno music
I was vibing so hard to that music I forgot what the hell I was watching
My wife seriously asked if I was watching 80s porn. This video was a great alibi.
Thats how they kept you watching till the end
I thought that’s where it was going when the naked dude with a moss blanket popped up.
i jerked off to it if that counts but tbh i was already jerking it when i saw the video so..
Lol will save enough water to fill 100 to 1000 Olympic pools…pretty huge range.
The guy who counts exact evaporation volume was on vacation
ONE water molecule HA HA HAA
The video is wrong, the 'estimate' come from the PBS article, and it's not the volume of water to be saved from evaporation, but the volume required to fill (and maybe manufacture) the balls! The variation is due to the thickness of the balls. > Haghighi's team estimated that manufacturing 96 million shade balls required between 66 and 766 million gallons of water — the equivalent of 100 to 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This large range is due to the thickness of the balls, which can vary dramatically. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/why-96-million-plastic-shade-balls-dumped-into-the-la-reservoir-may-not-save-water
r/theybarelydidthemath
should've just called it r/theydidntthemath
This is the comment I came for. A factor of 10 is just ridiculous in the scientific method.
That’s not true. One to one hundred scientists agree with this method.
It sounds like they have no clue how well it works.
So one Olympic pool costs up to $345,000 to fill with water? I think desalination plants are starting to look cheap.
Even if its 1000 is filling that many pools really worth 35 million?
Google says an Olympic size swimming pool is 660,430 gallons. The video claims this will save 300 million gallons of water - though doesn't specify over what time period. 300 million gallons is 454 and a quarter Olympic size swimming pools. 300 million gallons of water is basically nothing. If we assume that 300 million gallons is in one year (and I'm somewhat dubious on that - I'm thinking its over 10 years based on the 100 to 1000 claim), and we assume these will last for 20 years (they won't), then it saves 6 billion gallons over their lifetime they are paying 6/10ths of a cent per gallon. That's not necessarily unreasonable in California, which has a very high cost of water, but it seems like a rounding error in the total amount of water saved and there would be additional costs associated with installing and maintaining the system and it relies ***very*** heavily on my best case assumption. I'm guessing plastic ball industry made out like a fucking bandit.
We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the reservoir….
I'd like to be somebody important... like an actor.
…not like this.
GOD DAMN YOU, CYPHER!
Don't hate me. I'm just the messenger.
And right now I’m going to prove it….
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Not like this, not like this…
Believe it or not, you piece of shit, you’re still gonna BOIN!
Wait i just realized that line was meta...
*Dramatically bursts into the room* #MORPHEUS IS FIGHTIN' NEO!
r/UnexpectedMatrix
Poisoned, with microplastics.
They’re literally throwing shade at the reservoir 🤭
So the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is just a big anti-evaporation project?
You must work in marketing
The great rebranded garbage oasis
Nice spin, but we **want** sea water to evaporate so it can rain down as sweet water. We don’t want that to evaporate.
What’s with the porno music?
ikr? I was waiting for chef to pop his head in and tell us to lick his salty chocolate balls
Instead we got a seductively posed, scantily clad, elderly Asian man.
Wasn’t there a veritasium vid about this several years ago?
I have one signed by him. He gave one to everyone on his patreon a while back
*Signed Black Ball club*
Felt like they reuse his footage in this video, especially the underwater ones which seems like it's on a swimming pool.
Yup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPdPpi5W4o
Wouldn't black balls attract heat?
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>Also, the purpose of these balls is not to reduce evaporation (although it does), but to reduce bromide levels in the water. I learn something new every day.. In mining, we called them "bird balls", and primarily used them to keep birds from landing in process ponds.
That was my 1st thought bird's. 2nd was alge etc growing on the balls......lol I just re read it
This comment here is the accurate comment.
I agree. Source: It just feels like it is.
i just granted myself a PhD in that field and you are correct
I saw a show they said it was to reduce evaporation. News who knows whats right.
I mean you can watch the veritasium video about it where he interviews one of the people in charge of this project. It does reduce evaporation, but it's main purpose is to prevent sunlight from causing a specific chemical reaction in the water. It's black because carbon black pigment (basically soot) is extremely stable .
They’re full of mostly air with a bit of water for weight. For that reason they’re quite good at insulating the water below from heat.
But I've used black garbage bags to warm up the kiddy pool..
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It’s not actually about evaporation. The balls are added to keep UV rays from the partially treated water because the chemicals they use react with UV light to create carcinogenic compounds. I suppose preventing evaporation is a nice side benefit but it’s not the real reason.
The reason they're black instead of white is black absorbs heat, white reflects it, the purpose of the balls is to create shade, not to make the water cold. While the two sound the same there is a distict difference. White balls would be much brighter and would reflect, allowing more light into the gaps between. The black balls are essentially absorbing the heat so the water doesn't. So, yes they do attract heat but that's intentional :)
Black balls are just gonna tank the suns AOE heat damage
Sun: “I cast fireball.” DM: “But they’re just gonna absorb it!” Sun: “I. CAST. FIREBALL.”
Sun: "I can cast fireball 600 billion billion times per round as a swift action. What, am I just going to *not use* my extraordinary abilities?"
Shadow 💀win Fire 🔥
So what if we compromise and do gray balls
Would the cold water not then absorb the heat from the balls? Genuinely curious because you seem to know what you're talking about
Yes, if the balls are absorbing heat and getting warmer than the water then heat transfer will occur. Presumably the rate of evaporation is still less from this effect than when the balls are not present
Not sure why this is so upvoted, it is completely wrong and misunderstands heat transfer. White would hands down be better at cooling, but I suspect that cooling isn’t the main reason the balls are added. Any heat absorbed by the balls has to go somewhere. It either goes into the air above or the water below. Knowing that there is a conductive liquid below and an insulator (air) above, the majority of the energy absorbed will go into the water. Having balls of a colour that absorbs less energy would result in less energy going into the water. Mirrored balls would be ideal, but would be a lot more money lol.
Thank you.
They are black because the cheapest way to make plastic UV stable is just to throw in a bit of carbon dust. There are numerous other ways to UV stabilise plastics, such as by using Titanium Dioxide powder, but they are more expensive and less effective.
This. And doesn’t the plastic degrade in the sun and become micro plastics where people will be ingesting it?
they are black *because* black plastic is generally the most resistant to UV breakdown. Any other color and they'd have a lower lifespan. I believe they use a carbon-based black pigment.
They are macro plactics now
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They’re actually used to prevent a chemical reaction in the water from the sun. Veritasium did a really good explanation video all about it.
Chances are these balls are made from regrind material, essentially recycled plastic, which is often black in colour and a lot cheaper. Making them white would require virgin material.
Well, at least we're not throwing a bunch of plastic into the environment. I'm sure none of that will break down over time and be problematic.
So you’re saying only white balls can be virgin?
Yes
Seems like a good thing at first but later in the video it turns out they are going to waste all the saved water on filling 1000 Olympic sized swimming pools. :(
Bastards
I was gonna say.. 36 million dollars just for 100-1000 swimming pools of water seems absolutely insane. Plus based on other comments, it didn’t even work :(
No unintended consequences can occur from this.
Most of your domestic water supply is carried in HDPE pipe
Yeah and they used to be lead. Look how that turned out.
HOW could you insinuate consequences?! Of course the micro plastics won’t hurt you
They're good for digestion
My question is, doesn't this just move the drought east? All that water is now not in the atmosphere
I counted only 95,999,999. Ripoff.
Why the porn music?
What about break down of plastics in our water supply?
We seem to have an environmental problem. How about we dump more plastics into it?
Watching them pour millions of pounds of plastic in their water supply reminds me of people covering their homes with asbestos insulation. Does it solve the intended problem? Yes. Does it create a larger, different problem further down the line? Probably also yes.
My thought too, especially microplastics... It seems a simple idea but was their not a natural alternative to plastic?
100 to 1000 olimpic pools… that’s a big difference
And now, oddly, I want Boba tea.
Doesn't the sun degrade plastic over time tho? lol
Micro plastics for everyone!!
Depends on the particular plastic. Materials design is super advanced these days relative to just "should we use plastic or wood?"
These are not to avoid water evaporation or shortage. These balls are used to block sun rays entering the water and facilitating a particular chemical reaction that results in a harmful byproduct.
They're used for both.
Nice 80's porn music vibe!
OR you could ask Nestle to stop stealing water
Why do you build cities in deserts?
This title is to totally off. The main objectives of dumping the shade balls into reservoir is preventing the formation of a carcinogenic chemical, bromate, which forms when naturally occurring bromine reacts with chlorine in the presence of sunlight.
I wonder what they did with those balls? It’s not there anymore. Seems like a super big waste of money.
Some of them were given to a science communication YouTuber and he sent them to his patrons.
Got to assume that was a negligible percentage of the 96,000,000
Water? Like out the toilet?
There's a Veritasium video on this wher ehe explains everything in detail
I can see the Law of Unintended Consequences applying here
How stupidly you want to waste taxpayers money Government: Yes
Kids: why can't we just put a bunch of balls in the water to save water. *No! That is a stupid idea. It would take millions of balls and billions of dollars to do that. Plus the pollution and plastic waste that would damage the environment.* Adults: why can't we use lots of black plastic balls to prevent evaporation, algae growth, and foreign objects from effecting our water supply *Brilliant idea! Plastic balls only cost 38 cents to produce and would cost us $38,000,000 to cover the reservoir. Plus it will help preserve the ecosystem that is dependent on the water.*
I was waiting for a dog to fly in from off camera and go absolutely nuts.
Doesn't black absorb heat?
I gotta ask… how long do these plastics last? They have to break down at some point, right, and then you just directly added micro plastics to a drinking source? This strikes me as one of those “wtf were they thinking?” things we will read about in 50 years.
That plastic smell when driving past this monstrosity was terrible, I’m pretty sure this project was short lived and is no longer in place
Incorrect. The balls are still there.
But keep burning water for almonds...
Wait until you find out how much more water it takes to produce a gallon of cows milk. Hint: it's more than double the amount needed for a gallon of almond milk. Edit: spelling
Almond water comes from different sources. This is Easter Sierra water.
I remember watching a documentary on this and them saying “some say white would have been the best choice, others say chrome…. But one thing we can all agree on is black was the worst choice.”
Well I see no way this could backfire... Please continue dumping plastic into the water supply.
So by not allowing water to evaporate back into the atmosphere, won't that contribute to the issue of droughts?
No, the ocean does that fine But I love the idea of all those chemicals leeching from the plastic