Just back from an amazing Solar Power conference and exhibition in San Diego, California. Over 20 000 professional delegates and a surprise address from Arnie himself. Please check out the site http://www.solarpowerconference.com/. All I can say is that the atmosphere in the conference sessions resembled what the Gold Rush must have been like. Here were a bunch of professionals committed to solar energy as one of the ways forward. The site contains videos of the addresses. As for the argument that solar photovoltaic  is not viable, I was told by many delagtes that the "energy payback" (i.e. the time to recuperate the energy put into the manufacture of the PV units) is about 5 years. And with guarantees of a 25-year life span, the argument for solar is looking good.