"Most of which require more energy than they produce, especially photovoltaics."
Turns out you were wrong. See the following reference for an exhaustive comparison of many different energy systems:
Energy Analysis of Power Systems
I would have to see the critical assumptions (such as weather) before I would buy that one study. I doubt that it included dust on the cell for example and SURELY didn't include the strorage requirements for night operation or the real estate costs for larger systems or the cost of the manufacturing apparatus (high-vacuum pumps for CVD processes don't come cheap). They might not look so good to you if you considered how much mining there would have to be to build adequate battery reserves. I wrote a rather long piece and posted it last night, but for some reason the system dumped it and it didn't show up. I noted for example, that broadband (for trip reduction) and passive heating are seldom part of the discussion. I'm not going to bother for now, because I don't live this stuff. I'm flaging snopercod because he deals with these issues more often than I.
PVs are fine in remote locations for low-current applications such as lighting. They just don't compete with other technologies as a primary source of energy. Even your citation states that. IMO solar is most appropriate for water and space heating, but even then carries a heavy environmental penalty for mining. Any conversion of our transportation economy from chemical to electric energy (other than nuclear) will require copper mining and the impact of demand pull upon raw material cost is seldom part of the analyses, especially in the case of rare earth minerals (magnets) and precious metals (catylists).
Now (for the real test of your understanding of the situation and how we got here), guess who is the biggest source of funds for RICOnut environmentalists?
The private foundations of stockholders in oil companies.