for each of 357 industries or sectors in the U.S. economy, the energy cost of goods and services for different energy sources. This energy cost is expressed as the number of Btu required per dollar of final output. Ratios, or coefficients, are given for crude oil and gas, coal, and other energy sources, primarily hydroelectric and nuclear. To calculate the external energy subsidy, the first step is to obtain the capital cost of the power plant in sufficient detail so that each cost component may be associated with one or more of the 357 industry or sector groups. The dollars expended on each component cost are then multiplied by the Btu/dollar coefficient for each of the three major energy classes to identify the energy required for production. These energies are summed to derive a total capital energy required which, when divided by the number of years over which capital energies are amortized, yields an annual energy subsidy for capital energies. A parallel analysis is then conducted for operating energies wherein the operating costs are similarly disaggregated into the appropriate industry sectors and the Btu/dollar coefficients applied to derive the annual operating energy subsidy. The technique used is, of course, subject to several significant limitations. The economics/energy sectors used are often quite broad and do not specifically apply to the cost components under investigation. In such instances, it is often necessary to further disaggregate a cost component, sometimes down to the level of primary or secondary metals or minerals manufacture. In the opinion of DSI, there is a potential error of plus or minus 25% in the input-output coefficients. Notwithstanding its limitations, this technique does provide for the inclusion of many indirect sources of energy consumption. By operating directly on the dollars expended by item and the energy required per dollar, the technique incorporates many of the indirect energy expenditures normally lost in the normal process analysis, which is usually weight defined. Applying the DSI methodology to the SSPS information provided in the ECON study presents numerous problems in reconciling the ECON cost components to the DSI economic sectors. Furthermore, the DSI report is limited primarily to known terrestrial generation and does not deal explicitly with the dynamic nature of per unit energy requirements for rapidly changing space technologies.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==