II. ASSESSMENT RESULTS The Societal Assessment found no single issue or cluster of issues that would preclude the further development of an SPS Reference System for use in the post-2000 time period. Although SPS land requirements are large and the acquisition of the sixty specific rectenna sites needed will be difficult, both problems appear to be manageable. Estimated material and energy resource demands are well within U.S. capabilities. Institutions appear equal to the task of accommodating the SPS even though some of them will require rather profound modification. International implications are extensive and will require complex negotiations and agreements; assurance of geostationary orbit availability will require early consideration. Public concerns about SPS tend to focus on the biological effects of microwave radiation, the tendency it may have to further centralize our energy resources and society in general, the economics of the system, and its international (particularly military) implications . A. RESOURCE AVAILABILITY Physical resources considered most critical to SPS are land, energy, and materials. The general objectives of studies addressing these issues were: • To identify resource requirements based on the SPS Reference System; and • To identify potential resource availability problems and, where possible, strategies for overcoming them. A series of preliminary resource assessment studies were conducted. Based on these findings, further analyses pursued the materials and rectenna siting studies and developed a prototype Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a hypothetical rectenna site. 1. Land Use-Rectenna Siting5 The approach to the land availability problem has been to identify those areas of the contiguous U.S. that cannot be used for siting SPS rectennas. These areas, in the continental United States (CONUS), have been identified
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