SOCIAL ACCEPTABILITY OF SATELLITE POWER SYSTEMS: A PRELIMINARY EXPLORATION Stephen L. Klineberg Department of Sociology - Rice University - Houston, Texas 77001 The U.S. Department of Energy is exploring several options for generating electrical power to meet future energy needs. One of these options is the Satellite Power System (SPS), a method of collecting solar energy in space for use in producing electricity on earth. In this early stage in the assessment of satellite power as a potential energy option, it is important to anticipate and explore as fully as possible those aspects of contemporary social change that may be expected to complicate the process of achieving the necessary support of the American public for this venture. Energy policy is primarily a social and political issue, even more than an economic or technological one. Current patterns of public opinion make it appear unlikely that a strong consensus favoring heroic efforts to develop new energy supplies will emerge during the 1980s. The most recent polls indicate a major evolution in public attitudes along the following dimensions: (1) a shift away from the traditional faith in an unlimited future, toward a pervasive worry over inflation and a new economic pessimism; (2) a growing acceptance of the reality of energy shortages and of the vulnerability and precariousness of the country's energy situation; (3) a swift, sharp, and all-encompassing decline of trust and confidence in government and in major corporations; (4) a declining faith in the ability of science and technology to solve current problems of shortages and resources; (5) a broadening of aspirations to encompass nonmaterial "quality- of-life" concerns, making the traditional criteria of efficiency and goods- production less powerful and more relative; and (6) strong and broad-based commitments to environmental protection. When concern about inflation and distrust of government and of major corporations combine with a commitment to environmental protection and a declining faith in science and technology, the resulting social environment is not particularly favorable for the support of a major new high-technology energy system such as the SPS. There is certain to be strong resistance to the high front-end development costs of the SPS program, to the further growth of the DOE/NASA bureaucracy that it implies, and to the strengthening of federal control over energy policy in the development of a highly exotic and potentially dangerous technology. More focused opposition to satellite power will come from those with vested interests in the long-run uses of coal, shale, nuclear breeders or fusion, and the development of on-site solar technologies. Even some space scientists will oppose the SPS out of fear that it might absorb all the capital and technology available for space, putting important small-scale projects in jeopardy. All such opposition could be overcome by a broad-based conviction that the additional electricity the program would provide in the late 1990s and beyond will be sufficiently needed to justify the front-end costs and environmental risks associated with a project of this magnitude. If the 1980s should witness continued exponential growth in the U.S. demand for centralized electricity generation, the prospects of "selling" the SPS system to the American people as an important solution to serious impending energy
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