NewTrans3.txt[9/15/2024 8:36:13 PM] III. MATCHING ENERGY DEMAND The question is whether a significant market will exist for large baseload power plants (LBPPs) during the period 2000-2025, which is the period of the possible introduction of space solar power plants into the energy system. The problem posed is that of the structure of energy demand at the beginning of the 21st century. Many prospective studies have been devoted to the volume of this demand. We have selected two of them: that of the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and that of the World Energy Conference (WEC) (2). The choice of scenarios prepared by MESAREVIC within the framework of the CWRU (1) is explained by the fact that the author used a global dynamic model of the world economy, taking into account the available investment capacities to forecast economic growth and in particular energy growth. In addition, the author favors hypotheses of moderate growth, and we wanted to base ourselves on a minimum demand to forecast the market that may be open to LSPs. If actual growth in energy demand proves to be higher than the forecasts retained, demand will simply be even greater than we expect. The interest of the WEC energy scenarios is to reflect not only forecasts but also a political will for growth of the countries participating in the conference. The scenarios that we have specifically retained as the basis for our assessments are: the lower growth model of the CWRU; and the H5 model of the WEC Conservation Commission. In both cases, the world is divided into about ten regions within which energy developments are assumed to be homogeneous (Table 1). The regional energy demands predicted by the two models are given in Tables 2 (WCRU) and 3 (WEC) for the years 2000 and 2025 (WCRU) or 2020 (WEC). There is a general continuation of the growth of energy consumption, slowed down in industrialized regions, but accelerated on the contrary in developing countries. This situation is likely to the extent that third world countries aspire to rapid economic development, and where industrial nations, even if they have significant energy saving potential, will have to consume more energy to increase the average standard of living of their populations. The WEC scenario predicts an increase in the role of electricity in global energy demand (Table 4). The fraction of primary energy consumed for electricity production would thus reach 50% in 2020 in the most industrialized countries. The historical trend is incontestably in this direction. But will it continue, or even increase? It is not unreasonable to think so, to the extent that the desire to save oil and natural gas will favor energy technologies that produce electricity, such as power plants. coal or nuclear power plants. The WCRU scenario does not make any forecasts for the share of electricity. In this case, we have therefore made our own extrapolations compared to the current situation (Table 5). The likely combination of a general growth in energy consumption and an increased role for electricity suggests a significant increase in the need for GCEB. Energy systems such as CSS therefore appear to be well suited to future demand. We will now attempt to quantify their potential market. IV. ASSESSMENT OF THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR CSS The assessment of the potential market for GCEB can hardly be carried out by only taking into account the overall electricity demand of each region. A more detailed geographical approach is necessary. The establishment of a baseload electricity unit of 3 to 5 GW will indeed only be justified in a certain location if it is profitable to distribute electricity around this location by means of a centralized electricity network. It is easy to see that this profitability criterion is linked to the average density D of electrical demand around the location considered: if this density is high, short and relatively inexpensive distribution lines will be sufficient to distribute the large quantity of energy produced; if this density is low, the length of the distribution lines and consequently their cost will become prohibitive. In a previous study, we showed the existence of an average critical electrical demand density Dec: if D is greater than Dec, fully centralized electricity production is justified; if on the contrary D is less than Dec, centralization must only be partial, and decreasing with D (the additional production must then be provided by decentralized units much smaller than the GCEBs). We estimated Dec = 200 MWh/km2, a value for which the optimized cost of the network would reach 50% of a reference investment cost of a GCEB ($2000/kW). It can be noted that the results obtained subsequently are relatively insensitive to the precise choice of Dec.
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