construction and then about 450 persons/year for operating and manufacturing. Families would be relocated with some of the workers, which increases the population of the surrounding area. This results in a higher amount of services (e.g., water, food, housing, schools) being needed. The development of technologies to carry out the large scale project will provide new aspects to different fields. These spin-offs can be either technical or social. With more ingenious technology and knowledge, several of the Earth's problems that have defied solutions for centuries will now be solved. Developments in the areas of transportation of energy and large-scale construction will provide us with technological spin-offs like the production of new materials necessary for construction. Materials with less weight, more strength, and non- corrosive, highly resistant, virtually unbreakable, thin-walled materials will have a great value for industry. The knowledge how to produce such things can be sold, what may reduce the price of energy coming from space power program. Such materials produced en mass can provide for example a solution to the housing problem in developing countries. The improvement of solar cells and photovoltaics in general will give us the opportunity to use solar energy on Earth in a more efficient way. In order to store the energy converted from the power beam we may have to look for better energy storage means. The improvement in storing energy in an efficient way can be used in many other areas, for example stronger batteries for electric cars. A social spin-off is the improvement of people's life style, through the easy availability of energy in developing countries. Another potential of carrying out space solar power program will be a general social improvement in the life-style of mankind. Some of the benefits will be: transnational development through carrying out the project in an international group. People's common interests and goals and will learn to understand each other. An increase in communication and remote sensing will provide, in developing countries, basic and better information for the population, necessary for their survival and development concerning health, family planning and technological breakthrough. Already a great number of medical applications of space industrialization are finding their way into our lives, such as lasers or automated body-monitoring devices. In the future this will increase and will provide us more benefits. 3.2.4 Pricing The economic viability of the Space Solar Power Program will be dependent upon the costs, the economy and the price of alternative conventional and other future power systems. The price of electrical energy is composed of many elements. In order to realize the factors creating the price of electrical energy, let us take the New York State Electricity + Gas Corporation in 1990 [Leaflet, 1990]. They spent their revenue as follows: Table 3.3 Revenue of New York State Electricity and Gas Corporation ____Spent, 1990 A big amount of their revenues are used for the financial area. The price of electricity largely depends on wages, interests and taxes. For marketing our product successfully it is necessary to take each possibility influencing the price into consideration. If government owns the power providing facility it can influence the price of energy and so may encourage a certain development (environmental aspects). Government may use monopolistic the position and fix the price itself according to the intended policy. This of course prohibits fair competition and a health development of the market. On the other hand government is able to
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