hi doma,
that's a sensible model of thinking but i think a false conclusion.
one should indeed take all costs into account in assessing the environmental impact of solar. but the measure of value isn't that solar is free of harm. it is that it is less harmful than existing energy sources. actually than coal in particular.
at the same time, you don't get a cheaper price for solar versus coal without a cheaper manufacturing process.
and while creating solar cells is not without an environmental impact, relative to coal mining, i daresay solar cell materials mining is not environmentally especially harmful.
so perhaps one can say that solar manufacture is no more damaging and now costs less than coal.
moving from manufacture to operation ... in carbon use terms, solar is far less damaging to the environment than coal. or so we are told.
doubtless there are imperfections in the creation of solar cells. but relatively speaking, it improves our carbon footprint over the product's life-cycle and it is cheaper.
what is not to like?
the bar we are trying to jump isn't perfection. it's improving on what we have.
here's a source for comparisons:
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-solar-power.html
"While there are no global warming emissions associated with generating electricity from solar energy, there are emissions associated with other stages of the solar life-cycle, including manufacturing, materials transportation, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning and dismantlement. Most estimates of life-cycle emissions for photovoltaic systems are between 0.07 and 0.18 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.
Most estimates for concentrating solar power range from 0.08 to 0.2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. In both cases, this is far less than the lifecycle emission rates for natural gas (0.6-2 lbs of CO2E/kWh) and coal (1.4-3.6 lbs of CO2E/kWh)"
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