Centers for Sustainable Development Centers for Sustainable Development (CSD) blends the concepts of: • Low orbit power satellites multi-plexing power, i.e SPS 2000, • The Technopolis Concept discuss later, • Economic concepts described in The Other Path, and • Results from work done at PrepCon IV of the UNCED [9] process together to: 7a Generate remunerative employment and productive occupational opportunities (farm and non-farm). 7b Develop infrastructure, marketing systems, technology systems, credit systems, etc., to support the above and to widen the options of the (rural) poor. 9a Formulate and implement a cooperative programme on poverty alleviation and sustainable development......including rural development, access to land, promotion of credit, small and micro-enterprises, marketing systems. The concept is to establish CSD's in countries that support the acquisition of frequency allocations and orbital slots and provide energy to the centers as well as infrastructure development and training. Energy Farms An energy farm would be an expansion of a CSD which would eventually evolve in a terraced fashion into a synthetic fiiel production center. The farms might initially need to be located near mineral resources such as the iron deposits in Gabon or the coal resources in China. Another possible location is in the Sahara with the energy farm in this case being an energy center. The operation of this center would involve piping sea water to the center, and using solar energy for desalinization. Energy from space would be used to produce hydrogen and fuels which could be used in Africa or exported to Europe. Equatorial SpacePort Developing the energy fields in space will require putting a great deal of material in equatorial low earth orbit. The number of launches will probably exceed a 100 a year which is more than any government launch complex can handle. This will require creating a commercial SpacePort such as that proposed for Cape York, Australia and similar in size to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex or Kansai international airports. The operation would be similar to an economic development zone with duty free status and possibly city-state status among the surrounding countries. Estimated cost of construction is between 3 and 5 billion dollars. For comparison, the Ariane 5 complex in Kouru cost 1 billion dollars.
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