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Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?

Veritasium · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Environment, agriculture & food systemsCivil engineering & construction

What it is

Veritasium rides a boat across the Los Angeles reservoir covered in 96 million black plastic balls. He explains why they were really introduced, which was not primarily to reduce evaporation.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Referenced as the explanation of shade balls and used in discussions of evaporation and floating covers.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2019, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “I thought the engineering at play here was pretty interesting.”

    Shade balls on LA reservoir.

    el_benhameen, 2019-05 · Recommendation · in “A Norwegian town built a giant mirror to deflect the sun (2017)”

  2. “Veritasium video about Los Angeles' reservoir black spheres project.”

    Explains why LA's shade balls are black.

    Tyrannosaur, 2022-11 · Recommendation · in “Floating solar panels that track the Sun”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: shade balls, los angeles, water engineering, evaporation, veritasium

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