vanced energy technology projects. This justification, therefore, requires an appreciation of the competitive cost of alternative energy sources for the generation of electrical power which would be available in the same period. Any SPS development program should be timed-phased so that the “economic” purpose of each program segment will be to obtain information that will permit the decision makers to make a deliberate decision to continue the program or to terminate it — and thereby to control the overall risk. Cost-effectiveness analyses alone would be inappropriate, as they would require postulating scenarios of the future which could be extremely difficult, if not impossible. The near-term decisions regarding the SPS program should be based on resources allocated to the SPS research tasks and their priorities rather than the projected economics of the SPS in the 21st century. The benefits and cost of a development program as large as the SPS are not likely to be uniformly distributed, but are more likely to be concentrated in certain segments of society and the economies of industrialized nations. Individuals, corporations, institutions, and even entire sectors of industry will react to the cost and the benefits of the development as they perceive them. As a result of these perceptions, political pressures are likely to have a pronounced effect on the SPS development program, its schedule, and its ultimate success. In the various studies to date, the major emphasis has been given to establishing technical feasibility; only limited economic feasibility studies have been performed, primarily pertaining to system costs, development program costs, costs of terrestrial alternatives, and comparative economics of space and terrestrial power systems (21, 22). The results of these studies have shown no likely “show stoppers” which would justify abandoning the pursuit of the planned SPS programs, but have indicated technical, economic, environmental, and societal issues which require more detailed definition. For the SPS reference system which utilizes demonstratable technology, cost estimates, rough as they are, and subjected to criticism as they may be, fall within a potentially interesting range — clearly sufficient to justify not a major commitment to development and deployment of the SPS, but a continued research and technology verification program. (Advanced technology could lead to the development of an even more competitive SPS system.) The magnitude of this program has been projected at from $25 to $50 million per year during the next 3 to 5 years. Projections of SPS construction and operational costs some 30 to 50 years hence are speculative, as forecasts of future costs of an SPS system consisting of 50 or 100 satellites presume a knowledge of future technology which when contrasted with the revolutionary advances in technology during the past few decades make such projections of doubtful validity. However, these projections are often cited in an attempt to underline the magnitude of the investments for an SPS system. It should be acknowledged that introduction of any alternative advanced energy technology on a global scale will require an unprecedented level of investment over the extended time period required to make the transition from nonrenewable to renewable energy resources. 8.1.1. Cost projections. Cost projections have been an integral part of a series of system studies pertaining to the SPS. But such studies do not provide meaningful estimates of potential market penetration of the SPS, because uncertainties in forecasting prices are much larger than the cost differentials on which the choice among competing technologies will eventually be based. However, such cost studies can provide the following useful information:
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