ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF SOLAR SATELLITE POWER SYSTEMS (SSPS) Edward Passerini The University of Alabama - University, Alabama 35486 The basic plan is to build perhaps 60, 5000 megawatt plants in space which would provide perhaps 20% of our domestic electricity in the year 2030 at a cost of perhaps one trillion dollars (neglecting inflation, cost overruns, unanticipated difficulties, etc.). The cost of the first 5000 megawatt plant would be about $100 billion dollars (about 15 times the cost of a comparable terrestrial nuclear power plant). All of this assumes that the cost of photovoltaic cells will drop to about 25<£/watt (at which point the cost of cells to provide electricity on the roof of an average house would be less than $2000). The plan appears to be outrageously expensive. Each plant would require the firing of some 11,000 Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles. The HLLV (not yet developed) would be much larger than the Saturn rocket and would have to carry about 500 tons apiece as opposed to the 30 (present) to 60 (projected) ton capacity of the Saturn/space shuttle system. There are many environmental problems. The HLLV would punch unprecedented "holes" in the ionosphere. The microwaves would totally dry out the area under the rectenna. Birds flying through the microwave beam would become "uncomfortably warm" at best. For a bird crossing the center of the beam, "it is doubtful that an animal could survive such a flight." Two centimeter penetration and resonance would probably eliminate birds as well as butterflies. The beam might wander by accident and radiate human population or could be deliberately trained on human populations as a military weapon. The space platform is vulnerable to attack. The cells may have a very short life in space due to micrometeorite and plasma bombardment (perhaps more than 10% loss of capacity in only 10 years). The centralized power plant of rectennas would require a massive new land-lines system and would continue the present oligarchic system of power distribution. The beam would disrupt police, taxi, CB, and defence electronic communication equipment within a distance of perhaps 100 miles of the rectenna. The SSPS system adds heat (which would normally not reach the Earth) to the Earth's heat budget. The materials requirements are staggering. Each rectenna requires the output of a large copper mine, not to mention the steel and aluminum necessary. The array requires on the order of 3 million kg of synthetic sapphire, 3 million kg of Kapton, 3 million kg of graphite, etc. Each of hundreds of technical problems could shut down the project; among the unsolved problems are: outgassing of graphite, static cloud effect around the array, grating lobe effects, loss of surface in vacuuo, and repairs of random failure in an array of 105 klystrons. The international implications are probably insurmountable. It is very doubtful that the international community will allow the U.S., which already consumes over 30% of the world's electricity, to fill up a large portion of the geosynchronous orbit over South America and the Eastern Pacific for such a project. Some assumptions made in the "Reference System" are patently ridiculous; for example: the assumption of "zero launch-failure rate," the assumption of "no disposition costs," the assumption of 61% busbar efficiency, and the assumption of $1.94/ft2 for rectenna costs are all reminiscent of the early errors made by the nuclear industry.
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