It is for the engineering mindset. 'If I build this, what will happen?' is a question you are taught to consider in school and some of the examples are much like this

I totally get where you are coming from. I still disagree though. By definition, a second order effect is not a direct effect since an intervention after the first order effect can mediate second order effects. All the engineers I've had the pleasure to work with care a lot about outcomes to a reasonable level, somewhere closer to the butterfly flapping wings and further from the monsoon it causes.

The direct effect is lower cost of energy. That it gets used to then pump water continuously is a second-order effect.