Environment

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Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

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Solar panels on water canals seem like a no-brainer. So why aren't they widespread? (apnews.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (17 children)

One issue is keeping them clean.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (16 children)

In this scenario, you've got water and electricity readily available, seems like it would be straightforward to have small pumps and sprinklers. When the output from the panels drops below expected levels, automatically turn on the sprinklers for a bit to rinse them off.

[–] Cosmocrat 2 points 2 years ago

The water will evaporate and leave mineral deposits on the panels and that stuff is very hard to scrub off.

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