III. Program Framework: Business Opportunities, Environmental Concerns & Organizational Issues The program herein proposed encompasses a variety of important non-engineering issues, ranging from market/business opportunities to the requirements and constraints that are going to shape its development, be they environmental concerns or political, legal and organizational matters. It is important to recognize that this combined framework may dominate the evolution of the proposed program more profoundly than technology developments and engineering needs. We now briefly review our approach and more important results concerning this “non-engineering” framework. We have identified markets for near-term (around 2000 - 2020 time frame), mid term (2020 - 2040) and long term (2040 - 2100), and have found that the main segmentation will be between space-based and earth-based markets. In the near term there does not appear to be a viable market for space-based beamed power to serve existing communication satellites, mainly due to the state of laser technology and the extraordinary levels of reliability demanded by a risk-averse space industry. The mid-term picture is better, because in this period it is thought that the power beaming concept might be well-proven enough that clients would design their spacecraft with the intent of receiving power from an outside source. Also, power servicing during eclipse periods for satellites and platforms could eliminate the need for heavy batteries, and result in mass or payload savings. The potential market value of eclipse servicing is fairly high, but a high level of market penetration would be necessary for profitability. Were this and related markets ( such as beaming from space to future space stations or microgravity processing space facilities) to be successful, very large construction and development costs could be offset by revenues, generating multi-billion dollar profit over a 20-year period. Four earth-based market segments have been identified: i) remote locations with a developed energy demand, ii) locations that use little power now and that are not connected to any grid, like villages in developing nations, iii) power relay from energy-rich areas on earth to an area with high power demands, iv) large scale electricity grids . The first category includes towns or villages in Alaska or Siberia, research centers in Antarctica and small islands or groups of islands. Reasonable price levels may be in the range $0.20 - 0.60 /kWh (with higher prices for polar regions). This market segment will be relatively stable in the future. Remote locations with a developing energy demand are mainly found in developing countries at low latitudes. Providing even small amounts of energy to these locations gives direct and substantial benefits to the population and the environment. A problem is the lack of hard currency in these locations to pay for this energy, so it is proposed that alternative financing mechanisms be found, such as reallocation of aid funds from energy generation to provision of electricity. Much of the growth in world energy demand is predicted in these regions, so this segment is expected to grow in the near term, and stabilize in the mid term. Relaying power from one location on earth to another is another segment. As long as there exist locations with large natural energy resources but with a low local demand, the energy could be generated and transported to high demand areas. The users of relayed power would be the electricity companies operating the power grid. For the near term, these markets are roughly located in North America, Europe and Japan, but will start to spread in the developing world as well. Large grid operating companies are the major customers, especially in the long term. In the near term, delivering additional power during peak load times (about 6 hours a day) is interesting. For the long term, power delivery both for base and peak load seems sensible. High reliability will be required in this segment. A financial plan for ground to space solar power based on the phased approach explained in the previous section, has been studied. The initial (two) development steps would not generate revenues, but should give credibility for the space solar power organization. Subsequent commercial enterprises could generate yearly profits of up to 0.2, 100, and 2000 M$ / year, and a partial privatization of this organization could be arranged after the success of the second of these ventures. Throughout the length of this plan the space solar power organization would evolve from being mainly publicly
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