Cool, also saw Professor Maldonado talk about this on "Saturday Morning Physics":
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgne...
video:
http://lecb.physics.lsa.umich.edu/wl/umich/phys/satmorn/2010...
his research lab:
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgne...
video:
http://lecb.physics.lsa.umich.edu/wl/umich/phys/satmorn/2010...
his research lab:
The one bit that was sort of unconvincing was when he argued that if we create an exponentially growing photovoltaic industry it will (implication: indefinitely) take more energy to build than it provides. But it’s silly to assume the exponential growth to be unbounded: the whole idea is that once we build enough capacity, we can stop making more of the things and after a few years we get energy coming out without so much further (energy/money) investment. He made it sound like building photovoltaics at scale would be overall detrimental.
Other than that though, really excellent introductory background to put papers like this current one in context.