PURPOSE Volume II provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the Satellite Power System (SPS) on the environment in a technically detailed format more suitable for peer review than the executive summary of Vol. I. It serves to integrate and assimilate information that has appeared in documents referenced herein and to focus on issues that are purely environmental. It discloses the state-of-knowledge as perceived from recently completed DOE- sponsored studies and defines prospective research and study programs that can advance the state-of-knowledge and provide an expanded data base for use in an assessment planned for 1980. Alternatives for research that may be implemented in order to achieve this advancement are also discussed in order that a plan can be selected which will be consistent with the fiscal and time constraints on the SPS Environmental Assessment Program. INTRODUCTION Because prospective research studies to evaluate the environmental impact of the SPS have only recently been initiated or are in the planning stage, very few new data are available to form the basis for the preliminary assessment. Therefore, in most cases, this assessment relies on the retrospective interpretation of data that form the present body of knowledge. In several areas the data bases are large but for various reasons are believed to be inadequate for the purposes of making an impact assessment, while in other task areas the data bases are virtually nonexistent; therefore, the preliminary assessment must be made under conditions of uncertainty and with explicit caveats. Several unofficial documents are already in existence purporting to be SPS environmental impact assessments, which address environmental issues very lightly and tend to focus on issues that are not directly environmental in nature but rather are technological, societal, and comparative issues. Although it will be ultimately necessary to consider these other issues in making the final overall impact assessment, they will be discussed here only to the extent that they are relevant to the environmental assessment.
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