I agree with kovidgoyal.
We shouldn't claim that ebooks are environmentally friendly yet, so what? We're not going back to prehistory, it's not going to stop.
We can take paper consumption as an indicator of the transition to a knowledge-based economy. Then take a look at the pdf, China and India are not there yet.. but they will be.
Devices will converge, eventually you'll have two devices per person (or maybe even just one) for all your IT and media needs. At that point, infrastructure costs will be very stable.
Primary energy generation will progressively go green, (but it will take much longer for transportation)
And don't get me started on efficiency and productivity. What? I consume energy browsing catalogs???
What about the energy (literally) and time I would spend wandering store after store looking for a book?
What about updates and corrections to current material?
If you consider the issue of access then for me pbooks will never be able to compete.
People talk about books like they are fungible and universally available at any store. I don't want any book, I want THAT book. Most of the time I cannot obtain the books I read locally, most of the time I pay more for S&H than for the books themselves. I hate it.
Ebook readers grant potentially universal access to all books (in print or otherwise). Now if any study can conclude that it's cheaper (and greener) to have every book locally available then I will go back to college and retake microeconomics 101.
