decisions which, like orbit availability, would vest in foreign countries the control over the right to produce and transmit energy. The United States Government would have to be prepared to accept the inevitable extra bureaucratic delay that accompanies such complex decisions. The international regulation of the SPS is likely to increase the amount of regulation required at the federal level. As Table 4.51 indicates, the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies and the 1972 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused By Space Objects both guarantee that the United States Government will pay for damages resulting from any SPS activities undertaken with its assistance, regardless of negligence and regardless of the extent of direct government sponsorship. It is logical to assume that the federal government will insist on a powerful voice in the operation of any entity which, like the SPS, could incur substantial liability for which American taxpayers would ultimately be responsible. Table 4.52 lists the similarities and differences between the costs of regulating coal and regulating nuclear-generated electricity. This comparison has important implications for SPS. Although the costs associated with each justification for regulation make up about the same percentage of the total cost of regulating coal as of the cost of regulating nuclear-derived electricity, the total costs associated with the nuclear option exceed those of the coal option by more than 50%. Moreover, the bulk of the extra money spent on nuclear regulation appears to be concentrated in two areas of justification — ’’correction for externalities” and the ’’hybrid purpose" categories. The reasons for these differences between costs for coal-electric and nuclear-electric regulation could provide important indications of what would happen if an SPS system were deployed. If the specific programs within the nuclear "correction for externalities" and "hybrid purpose" categories are examined, it becomes apparent that the bulk of spending is on various research and development activities. Programs like back-end fuel-cycle waste management and civilian reactor development account for a large percentage of the total costs in their respective categories. Coal regulatory costs, on the other hand, result from regulations aimed mainly at mitigating adverse impacts that already are relatively well-organized, e.g., protection of miner health and safety and control of surface mining externalities. The fact that a large portion of the nuclear regulatory spending is on research and development activities intended to improve safety may reflect a more general concern that could also affect the SPS. Nucleargenerated electricity is one example chosen by Talbot Page in a recent article^?? to illustrate the "zero-infinity dilemma," which Page defines as the question of whether a decision to proceed with a technology should ever be made if that technology could result in a virtually infinite catastrophe even though the probability of such an event is virtually zero. It is clear that the United States Government has decided that a nuclear accident that results in a high-level radiation release into the environment would be infinitely costly and therefore intolerable;the substantial spending on research and development illustrated by Table 4.52 testifies to the commitment of the government to reduce the probability of such an accident to zero by effective preventive measures.
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