restrial and extraterrestrial solar energy prospects will become a reality within the next 15 to 20 years. Since solar power developments on earth face many limitations of atmosphere, vagaries of climate, and interruptions at night, the concept of SPS offers probably the most challenging energy alternative available to man. Originally, a proposal to collect solar power in space through photovoltaic arrays or solar collectors located in geostationary orbit about 36,000 km above the earth’s equator and transmitting it through a laser beam to the ground stations for distribution through the regular grid was made by Peter Glaser in 1968. The concept has been tested and further developed by several organizations and industries during the last 12 years. From several analyses, it is clear that even though many environmental and socioeconomic questions remain unanswered, the concept offers many technological and economic options comparable to other alternatives. First of all, the SPS would receive about 15 times the solar energy which can be received on the ground, and it would be available all the time. According to all accounts, technical feasibility of the project has been tested. Once constructed, the satellite will have a working life of about 30 years. The construction, design, fabrication, and maintenance of the SPS structure will provide a wide variety of options usually not available on the earth because of absence of gravity and the limitations of the earth's environment. Fortunately, materials required to build the power plant such as silicon and aluminum are abundantly available on Earth and on the Moon. Also, space required for constructing the power station will not put burden on the land resources of the earth except for receiving antennae, since it will be located far in the space. Even then, the land used for rectenna can be effectively used for agricultural and other purposes. Whenever possible such rectenna can be built in shallow coastal waters or lakes and rivers. An average SPS can supply 10 million kW of power which can be received by about 60 km2 of rectenna, located outside the city. It can meet the overall demand of approximately 4 million people in a developing country. Thus, to meet the present requirements of the electrical energy for the urban population of 600 million people in less developed countries, about 150 SPS structures are required. Ln India alone, 37 such structures would be enough for the purpose. Of course, these calculations do not include requirements of the rural population, which is widely dispersed over thousands of miles. However, these villages will get indirect benefits because other sources of energy like oil and coal, now being used in urban areas, will be available more easily at favorable prices in the rural areas, which are today starved of their basic energy requirements, particularly for food production, due to the prohibitive prices. Thus, although SPS cannot provide direct benefits to rural communities of the Third World at least for the next 50 years, it has a potential of revolutionizing their standard of living indirectly. According to J. Peter Vajk, “The existing infrastructure, which presently distributes firewood and animal manure for fuel, could readily assume the task of distributing the new liquid fuels from SPS powered chemical synthesis plants scattered through the hinterlands. One ten-million kilowatt SPS could synthesize enough methanol to provide the cooking fuel for about sixteen million people, neglecting the improved efficiency of the liquid fuel stoves, while freeing up millions of tons of cow dung and firewood, with major ecological benefits to those parts of the world most severely threatened today.” Yet, developing countries cannot escape the fact that for a long time to come they will have to depend on the soft energy sources, which can be used more efficiently by improving the available technologies they possess now. The SPS will remain only remotely beneficial at best.
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