Is air conditioning making cities hotter?
This is one reason I heavily push for roof top solar, even if it is a bit more expensive than utility scale. In many areas air conditioning is pretty much a given at this point.A typical solar panel absorbs ~20% of the sun's energy blasted on to a city rooftop. If that's used to power air conditioning it's doubly effective. You're reducing the heat urban heat island effect from the sun's energy, and you're also not adding additional heat from external power sources in to the city.On a large scale this would really help make cities more livable. On a hot summer day here in northern Kentucky I noticed a massive difference (I've roughly measured it at a 5-7F difference) going from less developed areas to the more urban areas.