The issues grouped under cost and performance concern the cost of construction, operation, and maintenance of an energy system, in terms of both capital costs and of operation and maintenance costs. Included in this group are system performance issues, e.g., the reliability. Environmental issues are divided into two subcategories: those that directly concern public and occupational health and safety and those that do not directly concern these areas (welfare). For example, damage to buildings from air pollution, loss of radio-frequency communication due to microwave interference, changes in land values resulting from deployment of an energy technology, and crop damage due to air pollution. Socioeconomic effects resulting from technology deployment (e.g., temporary and permanent shifts in population, near-term services, and employment opportunities) and macroeconomic issues like balance of trade, effect on the gross national product, and capital demands make up the Economics/Societal section. Institutional comparisons deal with the effects of existing institutions on the deployment of a technology (regulatory impacts). The resource category includes five subcategories: land, labor, materials, energy, and water. Here, key concerns include resource limits, production limits, degree of foreign dependency, and need for new skilled labor. Side-by-side analysis tabulates normalized (per MWe) effects of each technology. Because of its static nature it must make certain assumptions about the national economic state of the world. The next step in the methodology is the alternative futures analysis that treats most of the economic conditions as variables and creates a parametric comparison based on different plausible energy supply/demand futures. The last step in the process is an assessment dimension reduction step that would focus the comparative dimensions to the key issues via a formalized process.
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