I would love to see nuclear fusion working, and if more money was spent on it then I think it could be a reality faster. If we are talking about future innovation, the World Community Grid have been doing a lot of work to research organic solar cell materials. These would overcome your point about materials used for solar PV.

The point of my article is about what you as an individual can do to preserve resources, even if they are currently not in short supply (I didnt say they were), maintaining them for as long as possible is a decent thing to do for our future generations. For all we know there will be a CME that will fry all our electronics and return us to the steam age!

Thanks for your reply, its good to talk to other people interested in these issues.