to determine the expected returns from a potential investment. The major distinction is that a cost/benefit analysis considers the entire macro-economy as a single unit. It asks the question whether the expenditure of funds on this project will produce a product which will earn the total economy a satisfactory rate of return and thereby be considered as a worthy undertaking. A major feature of a macro-economic cost/benefit analysis which distinguishes it from investment evaluation on a micro level is the quantitative treatment of external effects, or more precisely, a social benefit or cost that is an outgrowth of a particular investment in which the values of the benefit or cost cannot be captured within the price of the product. This feature has important implications in the evaluation of the SSPS. The presence of externalities in this case is likely to help considerably in justifying funding for development of this option for power generation, even if capital costs are comparable to the capital costs of other power-generating methods. Some obvious external effects which should be treated are intermediate technological benefits, the effect on international trade and the balance of payments, environmental impacts, use of non renewable resources, and energy pay back. Such external effects are illustrative of the results of a technology assessment which would have to be carried in support of this project. Cost/Benefit analysis has been a reliable analytical tool for policy-makers । in the process of making research developmental and operational investment decisions. At the same time, its limitations are well known, perhaps best to those who have relied on it most. This does not suggest that the use of cost/benefit analysis on decisions of a long-term nature transcending national importance should be discouraged, but only that sober judgment of its promise in dealing with such decisions be applied. Many societal problems have proven not to be amenable to vigorous quantitative benefit/cost analysis. There are too many qualitative, intangible, incommensurable values involved. The best that cost/benefit analysis can do in these kinds of circumstances is to set qualitative goals or levels of desired achievement by value judgment, and then to seek the best mix of quantifiable developmental measures consistent with and subject to these goals. So it is with environmental objectives and resource planning. The intrinsic value of a stretch of wild river, for example, can be honored as a social benefit at the constrained cost of an irrigated crop or hydroelectric power production. The major categories of issues that should be addressed in the cost/benefit analysis are: • The size and expected yield of the research and development investments that are required to develop an SSPS; • The formulation of a standard of comparison which would include the cost of a composite of other means of providing power as this composite would appear in the 1990 to 2000 time frame, against which a composite system, including an SSPS, would be measured; and
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