and these economic impacts will be particularly crucial to the public acceptance of SPS in rural areas. By contrast, the displacement of population will be potentially more important in the formulation of public opinion about rectenna sites in the more metropolitan regions such as those indicated for Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and northern California. This is because relatively greater numbers of people would be displaced and there would be a potentially larger base of opposition. Related to this issue of population displacement in more urban regions is the disruption of local service economies which may have to be relocated to the periphery of proposed rectenna sites. This disruption of economic activity is intimately related to population displacements and both factors will affect public acceptance of rectenna sites in urbanized regions. 4.3.2 Boom Development from Rectenna Construction Much has already been written about the impacts of rapid growth from energy boom developments and much of the understanding about these problems can be extrapolated to the construction of SPS rectenna facilities. Since each rectenna would contain on the order of 1010 dipole receiving ele- ments that would have to be assembled, anchored and connected electronically, a large construction force will probably be needed at each site in order to achieve the schedule envisioned for implementing two 5-GW systems per year. The economic, demographic and sociocultural consequences of this activity will affect public acceptance of rectenna sites. Furthermore, opinions formed on the basis of experience with these construction impacts can be expected to flow over into public acceptance of the entire SPS concept. In order to understand the intensity of public reaction to rectenna construction, it is first necessary to determine the size of the primary construction force and the time required for completion of a project. This information can be used to estimate the intensity of the construction impact at any given site using the SEAM methodology described in Sec. 3. Based on these estimates, preliminary assessments can be made of the public acceptance of SPS.
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