two scenarios are referred to as UH and CI, respectively. The unconstrained high scenario (UH) is a situation in which the cost of electrical energy from conventional sources does not rise at a rate much greater than inflation and therefore remains relatively cheap. The availability of cheap energy means that the demand for electrical energy from these sources will continue to rise. It also means that conservation and substitutes for these sources of energy would not penetrate to a great degree. The other energy demand scenario (Cl) is the constrained intermediate scenario. In this situation the electrical demand is low because of the increasing cost of energy due to regulatory constraints on the utilization of coal and nuclear energy. Fuel prices would rise, and conservation and other energy substitutes would diminish demand for electrical energy from these sources, thus lowering the overall demand for electrical energy. Three different mixes of energy supply were examined for each of these scenarios (Table 5.7). These mixes of energy supply were selected to illustrate differences in meeting these radically different demand scenarios. Supply options 1 through 3 are evaluated for demand scenario UH for each of the comparative issues in Table 5.8. Supply options 4 through 6 are evaluated for demand scenario CI for each of the issue areas in Table 5.9. Looking across the different supply options for energy demand UH, it appears that the conventional energy systems will bring about the lowest cost of energy for all cases if they remain relatively unconstrained. However, along with this low cost of energy, future health impacts and safety problems with coal would no doubt become more severe. In addition, since coal would be heavily used because of increased electrical production, it would be expected that the western states would continue their very rapid development. The utilization of the SPS, as described in supply option S2, would limit the production of energy from nuclear only to LWRs and then replace this with SPS. Since SPS can be expected to cost more than these unconstrained conventional technologies, the overall cost of energy would rise. However, since the LMFBR would not be implemented, many of the health safeguard issues would not be of concern, but they would be replaced by the SPS health and safety issues. It is not expected that the CO2 problem would be lessened in the early post-2000 time frame, because the relative change in electrical energy production from coal could be small compared to the overall production of global CO2• In both supply options S2 and S3, the introduction of a new technology (i.e., SPS or fusion) introduces new industries that would require large investments. In addition, the large coal boom that will exist and will last until fusion or SPS become available would most likely drop very rapidly and produce a boom/bust cycle. Among the three supply options for the constrained intermediate demand case, supply option S4, the conventional one, would probably have the lowest energy cost. However, because all energy technology would probably be constrained, it is expected that all three of these cases would have higher energy costs than those described in demand scenario UH, unconstrained high. If the electrical energy growth is indeed constrained and substitution does occur in the form of other energy supply or conservation, then the conventional fuel resources (i.e., coal and uranium) will extend further into the 21st Century and therefore require very little in the form of other technologies for replacement. Supply scenarios S4-S6 replace each of these
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