V.4 How realistic does DOE consider the SPS to be? There has been a logical progression of growing interest in the SPS within the public and private sectors since the concept was first proposed by Peter Glaser in 1968. NASA considered the concept realistic enough to fund some SPS studies out of its "advanced studies" budget through FY76. Private corporations supported some small studies during this period, too. Congress also began to take notice of the SPS and in 1973 the first Congressional hearings of note took place. In early 1976, the Department of Energy (then, the Energy Research and Development Administration) established a Task Group on Satellite Power Stations to review past work and suggest future options. After fiscal year 1976, the Office of Management and Budget transferred responsibility for SPS studies to ERDA (now DOE) since the SPS is basically an energy option. The Task Group found that the SPS showed sufficient promise to recommend a more detailed assessment in accordance with a defined set of activities. This recommendation formed the basis for the three-year Concept Development and Evaluation Program presently nearing completion. This program will provide the information from which a policy decision can be made to proceed further or not, and if so, at what pace. The DOE, therefore, considers the SPS to be realistic enough to have undertaken a rather extensive concept development and evaluation program designed to determine what is known and unknown about the system and its potential impacts. The policy decisions to be made later this year will indicate how realistic the DOE considers SPS to be at that time. V.5 On what does success of the SPS depend? How much will it cost to decide whether or not to go ahead with the SPS? The success of the SPS will ultimately depend on its proven ability to provide baseload electric power safely and economically. Such an achievement could be met only with the Successful completion of a series of programs designed to evaluate, and if recommended, to fully address technical, environmental and societal issues. The three-year Concept Development and Evaluation Program, CDEP, nearing completion, has been undertaken as the first step.6^ The CDEP objective is to develop an initial understanding of SPS system requirements, technology goals and their feasibility; identify the system's enviromental and societal affects and their acceptability; and evaluate the SPS compared with alternative energy systems. 6 ASPS Concept Development and Evaluation Program Plan, July 19 77- August 1980, DOE/ET-0034, February 1978.
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