Hey there, thank you for the good questions! I'd definitely say that the lowest-conflict places for solar are within the built environment -- on warehouse and residential rooftops, over school parking lots, etc. Just a couple weeks ago I visited one of the largest rooftop solar installations in the country, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. More to come on that in Part 3 of Repowering the West: https://www.latimes.com/projects/repowering-the-west/.

I don't know as much about the repair/replacement issues, unfortunately. That's a topic I should probably learn more about!