2.6.1 Effects on the Public SPS effects on public health and safety result from incremental impacts of conventional processes as well as nonconventional impacts of terrestrial operations that are unique to the system. 2.6. 1.1 Incremental Effects of Conventional Processes To determine the incremental effects of SPS deployment on public health and safety it is necessary to determine the increase in mining, construction, manufacturing, and transport activity that is attributable to the SPS system. Studies have been made of the materials requirements for an SPS system (Ref. 2.8.1-2.8.3). These can be used as a rough gauge of the increase in activity dictated by the SPS configuration. Table 2.2 shows the materials requirements of the two tentative SPS system designs from Ref. 2.8.1 (silicon system and gallium arsenide system) compared to current U.S. production of these materials. It is evident that some of the materials requirements represent substantial increments to current production rates (e.g., mercury, argon, hydrogen, oxygen), hence the effects associated with these processes are likely to be significantly increased by SPS deployment. For other materials (e.g., aluminum, concrete) the increment is small (less than 2%). Some attempts have been made to quantify the impacts of an SPS system on air pollutant emissions, water effluents, water requirements, solid waste generation, and land requirements. These data are presented on Table 2.3. It should be noted that these estimates were based on an earlier SPS configuration concept and do not represent the most recent design points of Ref. 2.8.1. Nevertheless, they give an order of magnitude estimate of the impact. Also, the U.S. annual totals are yearly data while the SPS data are for the entire system over its approximately 30 year design lifetime. It is possible to compare the emission, effluent, and resource requirements to either U.S. totals or to alternative electrical generating systems, f For example, the particulate air pollutant emissions of 3.32 X 10 6 metric tons are about 23% of the U.S. total in 1973; the SO2, CO, and hydrocarbons are about 1.5%; and the NO2 is about 0.2%. The SPS-related emissions, however, are totals and not annual rates and so the data are not directly comparable. As another example, the water pollutant burden of a coal-fired power plant is 8-600 metric tons per megawatt-year vs 0.2 metric tons per
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