3A.1 RECTENNA WASTE HEAT EFFECTS Construction of a rectenna will modify the thermal and radiative properties of the ground on which it is built; operations will introduce a heat source at the surface. Though the perturbations by the rectenna of the average surface heat exchange is of the order of 10%, a tenfold increase in perturbation should be considered on the occasions of microwave beam wandering and spreading due to atmospheric refraction effects. A nonnegligible effect invariably resulting from nonlinear interactions when the atmosphere is perturbed should be considered, though the nonlinear effects need better definition on both the regional scale (10 to 100 km) and "cloud scale" (10 km and less). The effects will vary from one atmospheric condition to another and will be site specific. It is possible to investigate the effects of the rectenna by studying the effects of land-use changes. The meteorological effects may be estimated on both the regional scale (or mesoscale) and the cloud scale. On these scales, small temperature changes (of the order of 1°C) can be expected on occasions of light wind. Change in cloud populations can also be expected. Somewhat larger man-made heat dissipation rates over comparable areas are associated with apparent anomalies in the distribution of rainfall. In hilly terrain, on scales smaller than the rectenna dimensions (the cloud scale), there are diurnally varying changes in the surface energy budget which are larger than the rectenna waste heat. It is therefore to be expected that meteorological effects of a rectenna would vary from site to site, and the central maximum heat dissipation (20 to 30 Wm"^) might become important in augmenting a naturally occurring topographical effect on the surface energy budget. Assessment of possible weather and climate effects over areas larger than the mesoscale should not be confined to the influence of the rectenna alone. It is necessary to consider the whole SPS system in the context of the increased energy consumption which it is designed to meet. The overriding feature of the system is that the major inefficiency, the rejection of waste heat, is in space. Furthermore, there are no emissions of material into the troposphere. Of all major proposed power production systems, it is the least likely to have regional and global weather and climate effects.
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