Three principal kinds of environmental impacts should be considered: • Those due to waste product disposal (e.g., combustion product emissions, radioactive materials, and heat); • Those due to fuel mining and transport (e.g., land despoliation and fuel spills); and • Those due to the building and deployment of apparatus (e.g., energy use, land use, and aesthetic aspects of energy generation and distribution apparatus). These three areas should be explored with respect to conventional and proposed methods of power generation. As appropriate, quantitative factors should be stated and an assessment should be made of the gravity of each effect. More importantly, the methods proposed, or in use, to mitigate these effects should be considered and their influence on the future environmental impacts projected. Where possible, the likely cost increment for the use of advanced abatement technology should be estimated. It is recognized that most power systems have non-intemalized cost components whose evaluation should be part of the decision about energy. One should be careful, however, to identify the portions of the costs that are partly internalized so that a fair and believable reckoning can be made. While the current concern for the environment and the growth in demand for energy will be hard to reconcile, one thing is certain; viz., lessening of environmental impacts will play a greater and greater part in the selection and management of energy sources and energy-producing technology. These problems lead in three directions for relief: (1) ways to lessen the impact of present and proven energy technology on the environment; (2) palatable public policy which might lessen the demand for energy; and (3) new and more favorable technology. The balance between old and new technology should not, and will not, be struck by the classic methods of power plant engineering and cost analysis, but must take into account the social and environmental side effects of each. While all these effects may not be understood, or even perceived, the need for decisions on central station power plant technology requires that such effects be defined and assessed. Technology cannot be selected solely because it has some aspects which are more desirable than its competitors, or because it appears to meet a particular near-term need. There is the matter of broadly defined costs and these are often barely assessed. Everything possible must be done to understand all the costs and all the major side effects of each technology. 3) Capital and Operating Costs for an SSPS as Part of a Hybrid System The analysis of an SSPS should be based on the assumption that a major portion of the nation's electrical energy needs are to be so supplied. Long-run financing and production costs have to be estimated as well as the development costs needed to reach operational status. The costs should be annualized by consistent and conventional means and should be reflected into a mills-per-kilowatt-hour figure for a common basis of comparison. Load factor assumptions should be stated and rationalized against a forecast of power demand with typical load-duration curves.
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