The major U.S. aerospace companies have taken an active interest in the SPS concept since it was first proposed, and have continued to support independent work on SPS design studies. The Electric Power Research Institute, a private research organization funded by member utilities, is currently funding a study of SPS-utility integration issues. However, long-term investment in high-risk ventures demands a much more significant commitment by the private sector than is generally possible. Note, for example, federal government involvement in encouraging the commercialization of distributed energy systems. Ball's discussion of the synfuels challenge to industrial decision-making is very pertinent:62 "For conventional major capital investments to be attractive, they must be viable for a quarter-century or more.... familiar tools for evaluating investment decisions over long time spans become little more than academic exercises in a totally undefined industry...” Space development ventures traditionally have been economically risky, and supported by federal financing. Once the technical and economic viability of a system has been demonstrated, the private sector has stepped in to develop the market. This was true for communications satellites, and will probably be true for the SPS. Therefore, it is likely that the major source of funds to support continued SPS evaluation will be the public sector, assuming the necessary policy decisions are made to proceed with the program. V.2 Many respondents appear to believe that the objective of the CDEP effort is to plan for the commercialization of the SPS. The actual objectives of the DOE study are not clearly understood. To what areas of investigation are the program funds being allocated? How much of the total is going to environmental studies? The SPS Project Office's objective in undertaking the Concept Development and Evaluation Program (CDEP) is "to develop, by the end of 1980, an initial understanding of the technical feasibility, economic practicality, and the social and environmental acceptability of the SPS concept”.$3 The intent is to provide the government and the American people with the information they need before deciding to Ball, "New Challenges to Management in the Synfuels Revolution", Technology Review, August/September 1979, pp. 34 and 35. 6 3Taken from a policy statement on the SPS issued by the Secretary of Energy.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==