shortages would be significantly enhanced. There are compelling economic, technological, political, and social reasons, however, for anticipating instead a dramatic decline in the growth of U.S. energy demand during the closing decades of the twentieth century. The quasi-universal assumption that a nation's vitality is to be measured by the growth in its energy consumption has been tempered by the recognition that the more expensive, imported energy the U.S. consumes, the weaker its economy becomes. The "wastefulness" in current consumption patterns is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to increase the efficiency of energy use. It will take time to turn over obsolete assets and to reorganize social patterns. There are distinct limits to what can be accomplished in the near term, but the direction in which American society is now moving is clear, and visions of future energy demand that are based on a projection of past trends are no longer believable. Earth-based renewable-energy systems, in their various forms, seem destined to play an increasingly important role in the U.S. energy picture. Recognized as being particularly appropriate to the development needs of the labor-rich, village-dominated third-world countries, they are becoming the focus of growing interest in the U.S. as well. Their remarkable appeal reflects an evident desire on the part of many Americans to be more directly involved in meeting their own energy needs at the individual and local level, using technologies that they can understand and manage. Many fear that the high front-end costs of the SPS system will preempt less expensive alternatives, absorbing millions in R & D funds that are needed for the development of small-scale technologies and energy-storage systems. The eventual near-term public response to the SPS concept does not now appear to be favorable. At a time when renewable energy systems are seen to promise more democratic and local control over energy supplies, satellite power would centralize solar electricity and perpetuate the monopoly control of the utility companies. In a period of declining faith in central governments, large corporations, big science, and esoteric technologies, the SPS program would further the growth of federal and corporate control over energy policy, in the development and deployment of some of the biggest and most impressive technologies of all. During the early years of difficult transition toward a much more diversified energy system, based on both depletable and renewable sources, in both large and small-scale systems, the SPS would concentrate what many perceive to be a disproportionate share of available capital in the pursuit of a single dramatic "solution." Most importantly, the predictable growth of conservation efforts and the spreading deployment of dispersed renewables suggest that the unmet U.S. demand for centrally generated electricity is unlikely to grow sufficiently to convince a reluctant public of the necessity for an investment of capital, material, and technological resources on the scale demanded by the SPS program. Satellite Power Systems will have a problem in the area of public acceptability.
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