expensive but fuel-saving technologies may be offset by savings in other energy sectors (e.g., deployment of 3.3 GW per year of the SPS priced at 60 mills/kWh could result in a reduction of about $20 billion in energy expenditures for the year 2025, because of savings in nuclear- and coal-based energy technologies); (2) deployment of technologies requiring large capital investments tends to cause a reduction in the GNP growth rate (e.g., deployment of 10 GW per year of SPS could reduce the GNP growth rate by 10-25% in the year 2000 which, if continued and compounded to the year 2030, would result in a $400-1000 x 10$ reduction in a $7 x 1012-GNP economy); (3) all the constrained scenarios are inflationary, because the prices of scarce fuels are higher than they would be otherwise; and (4) deployment of fuel-saving technologies counteracts to some degree the inflationary aspects of a constrained environment, but quantitative estimates are difficult. Qualitative macroeconomic assessments on a regional level show that the impacts across technologies are quite different, with different regions having a vested interest in particular technologies. Similarly, income-class macro- economic assessments show that income groups (low, medium, high) have vested interests in particular technologies during both construction and operation. Public infrastructure costs and social stresses during both construction and operation were considered in a socioeconomic analysis. During construction, these effects may be quite significant for any remotely sited technology; however, due to the large amount of construction involved, this issue is particularly relevant for the SPS and TPV. All technologies should have minimal socioeconomic effects during operation. One major potential socioeconomic effect, though controversial and unquant ifiable, is that successful development of the SPS could provide the technical and industrial infrastructure necessary for further exploration of and industrialization in space. 4.6.2 Macroeconomic Analysis Calculations performed here are based on data for the years 2000 and 2025 because data for these years are available from the RFF model. Results for other years are largely based on interpolation and extrapolation of these results. Discussion. The average cost of central-station electricity generation (excluding fuel) in the U.S. is about 25 mills/kWh for coal and 30.5 mills/kWh for nuclear power. These figures may increase somewhat, in constant dollars, as mandated environmental and safety controls are implemented. The added costs will be compensated for, in part, by gradual improvements in technical efficiency. In contrast, the future cost of SPS — as for other untested technologies — is quite uncertain. The lower bound of present estimates appears to be at least a factor of two above the present nonfuel cost of nuclear electricity, or around 60 mills/kWh. This translates to $17.50 per million Btu. The macroeconomic impact of introducing a high-cost alternative technology such as SPS arises from three factors:
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