Well they’re part of a larger grid. Any clean energy on the grid will be cheaper than dirty, so will be sold to offset dirty even if Arizona was 100% clean.
You only need a certain amount of power. (In fact, you can’t generate more power than is needed, or you cause massive issues.) If this adds extra energy generation but doesn’t add demand, generation somewhere else will be taken offline. This will be whatever is cheapest, and green energy is nearly free after construction, so it’ll be dirty energy that isn’t running anymore.
My guess is that producing solar panels uses tons of fossil fuels. And they’re pretty much used up after 10-20 years and needs to be replaced and the old ones ends up in a landfill.
Luckily this does both, to some extent. It’s not as far as we need, but solar offsets dirty energy usage.
Doesn’t Arizona get most of its energy from the giant nuclear power plant near Phoenix?
Well they’re part of a larger grid. Any clean energy on the grid will be cheaper than dirty, so will be sold to offset dirty even if Arizona was 100% clean.
I don’t understand how it “offsets”. If someone pisses in the pool and I do it behind a tree, that somehow gets rid of piss molecules in the pool?
You only need a certain amount of power. (In fact, you can’t generate more power than is needed, or you cause massive issues.) If this adds extra energy generation but doesn’t add demand, generation somewhere else will be taken offline. This will be whatever is cheapest, and green energy is nearly free after construction, so it’ll be dirty energy that isn’t running anymore.
My guess is that producing solar panels uses tons of fossil fuels. And they’re pretty much used up after 10-20 years and needs to be replaced and the old ones ends up in a landfill.