[DougN7]

I've had the same thought about solar. The area under the panel used to get sunlight, and if nothing else, warmed up.

Not that it's necessarily bad, but widespread usage would have to have _some_ environmental impact.

[cirgue]

The same thing can be said of agriculture, and there are definitely environmental impacts, but we generally don't worry about the ground cover aspect.

[DougN7]

That is a really great point I had never thought of. Thank you.

[photojosh]

Now the panel warms up instead of the area underneath. What's the difference?

[dreamcompiler]

A small fraction gets turned into electricity. Which ultimately gets turned into...heat. So the net amount of heat reaching earth doesn't change.

[DougN7]

The final heat would most likely be produced in a different location. It would take a very large scale installation to have an impact. I guess I'm thinking of weather patterns when you see those images that say "if we covered 1/4 of Arizona in solar panels we could power the world!".

More of a thought experiment than anything I guess.

[adrianN]

Unless you build solar panels on top of a very low albedo ground, the amount of heat actually increases because less is reflected back to space.