large capacity storage, technically difficult to use solar energy for electricity generation. In central Europe the cost of solar electric power would be more than 2,5 times higher than in large areas of the United States, considering that the installation cost of a solar electrical generation plant is more than inversely proportional to insolation for a given capacity. The EEC's energy-supply projection foresees some contribution from new sources or technologies other than fossil fuels and nuclear energy (3). It is estimated that these may provide 2-5% of the energy needs in the year 2000, but none are expected to have a significant impact on Europe's overall energy supply. The total contribution from solar energy is not expected to be more than 1 or 2%, compared with 20% in the United States' plans. 3. Status of European SPS Activities Investigation of the SPS concept started in Europe approximately six years ago and National Agencies as well as the European Space Agency have tried to evaluate its viability for Europe. Most of the studies were initiated by departments or organizations associated with space research and technology. The energy departments of European governments have so far not shown any great interest in the idea. The first significant effort was a detailed study of the SPS concept performed under a contract from the German space research organization (4). The work was performed in 1974/75 and its results were used and further extended in an extensive analysis of the use of solar energy in general, which was performed by a group of German firms and research institutions under contract from the German Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT). This later study (5) led to the conclusion that for a country like Germany the potential advantages of an orbital solar power station are significant when compared with terrestrial solar power stations, since the relatively small amount of solar radiation energy available at the earth's surface, together with the unfavourable annual variations makes use of terrestrial solar power plants not very attractive. It was also pointed out, however, that a number of basic questions had to be investigated before specific technical problems should be studied. Examples of the basic questions raised were the environmental aspects, the cost of space transport and solarenergy conversion, the feasibility of controlling very large structures in space, and the analysis of alternative technical SPS configurations. However, despite the rather positive assessment of the SPS compared with terrestrial solar electrical power generation, the German Government did not continue its investigation. More recently the Department of Industry in the United Kingdom funded a study of the SPS as part of an investigation of the industrialization of space. This study (6), which was completed early in 1979, discussed the technological and environmental aspects of the SPS as well as its potential contribution to the European energy supply. It also addressed the economic and political issues involved in the manufacture and operation of the SPS. The conclusion was that the problems associated with the SPS were no different in scale from those associated with other options for supplying our future needs of baseload electricity, e.g. fossil fuel burning or nuclear fission. Any differ-
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