satellites. The results of the DOE/NASA program were noted by organizations in Europe, Japan, and the former USSR, leading them to investigate power beaming. International organizations such the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan, the European Space Agency and Eurospace, and several institutes of the former USSR Academy of Sciences have been and continue to be involved in power beaming studies. These initiatives are discussed below. The NASAZDOE assessment indicated that no single constraint has been identified which would preclude the development of an SPS for either technical, economic, environmental or societal reasons, and that the NASA SPS Reference System which assumed that 5 GW of base load power would be generated at the receiving antenna on Earth demonstrated that the technology for transmitting power from space to Earth is amenable to evolutionary development, and that the SPS concept is technically possible. The SPS was compared with alternative energy technologies, including coal, nuclear and terrestrial photovoltaic systems, in terms of cost and performance, health and safety, environmental effects, resource requirements, and institutional issues. The assessments indicated that: • The life-cycle cost range for the SPS overlaps the competitive cost ranges of alternative energy technologies; • All the technologies considered will have distinct, though different, health and safety impacts; • The low-level and delayed impacts of all energy technologies are difficult to quantify and assess; • Each technology has material requirements that could be critical, because of environmental control standards or limited production capability; however, these requirements do not appear to limit the SPS; • The total amount of land required for the complete fuel cycle is roughly the same for all energy technologies; however, the SPS and terrestrial centralized photovoltaic systems would require large contiguous land areas, although SPS receiving antennas could be placed on off-shore floating structures. The National Research Council reported in 1980 as part of an independent peer review that they saw no technological "show stoppers" for the SPS or satellite power system concept. To quote: "If suitable sites for rectennas could be located within a few hundred miles of large, integrated power networks, no insurmountable problems would arise in building microwave rectennas and integrating their power output into the U.S. electric grid system, (see hydrogen for longer distances)" Some type of SPS (Satellite Power System) would be possible from a technical point of view within the foreseeable future.
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