>Better to replace some farmland, which you can make a strong argument for if you're growing crops for biodiesel or fuel-ethanol were the sun-to-wheel efficiency is terrible.
Yeah, who needs to eat anyway? Lol it is perfectly fine to put this shit in parking lots. In hot climates, it's a benefit to customers to have covered parking. The wiring should be no more fragile than, say, power lines or lighting fixtures in the area. Parking lots are also better because it doesn't matter as much if water leaks between or around the solar panels. Putting them on rooftops tends to cause roof leaks and it presents problems for roof repairs.
>I've got bad news about nearly black PV panels... it might be cooler under them, but around them is a different story.
Higher temps around black PVs should be similar to black asphalt. Also, the thermal mass of the PVs is lower, so they will not stay as hot in the evening.
There are probably issues with PVs related to ice buildup and hail. They probably don't make sense in places with those issues.
Fuel ethanol is stupid too. It is made from corn, which could be used to feed people or at least animals. Anyway the point is, there is plenty of land that could have solar panels on it besides farm land. Farm land is too important to waste. We will starve if we don't have enough of it. You should always grow more food than you technically need. Crops can fail, and you can't eat solar panels or credit cards.
Fuel ethanol mostly exists because the US grows way too much corn to actually eat and we needed something to do with it. Industrial farming overshot what we needed to sustain the population and threatened to put a lot of farmers out of business.
This is one of the hidden benefits of corn ethanol, if there is some nutrition crunch it is trivial to convert back to farming food corn unlike switchgrass ethanol. There is no equipment to change out, no supply chains to rework, you just change which type of corn you plant and send the harvest to the market instead of the refiner.
Yeah, who needs to eat anyway? Lol it is perfectly fine to put this shit in parking lots. In hot climates, it's a benefit to customers to have covered parking. The wiring should be no more fragile than, say, power lines or lighting fixtures in the area. Parking lots are also better because it doesn't matter as much if water leaks between or around the solar panels. Putting them on rooftops tends to cause roof leaks and it presents problems for roof repairs.
>I've got bad news about nearly black PV panels... it might be cooler under them, but around them is a different story.
Higher temps around black PVs should be similar to black asphalt. Also, the thermal mass of the PVs is lower, so they will not stay as hot in the evening.
There are probably issues with PVs related to ice buildup and hail. They probably don't make sense in places with those issues.