NewTrans3.txt[9/15/2024 8:36:13 PM] The implementation of this geographical approach consisted in dividing the regions considered in the WEC and WCRU scenarios into zones of 10° latitude by 10° longitude. Then, in each zone, the electrical demand was evaluated as being proportional to the current population of this zone. We deduced D for each zone, and by a simple algorithm the corresponding centralized electrical demand. The basic centralized electrical demand, that to be provided by GCEBs, was then taken equal to 70% of the total centralized electrical demand. The details of the procedure can be found in reference (3). The result is, for each geographical area, and therefore for each region, the total number of GCEBs required. Table 6 gives the values obtained using the WCRU and WEC scenarios. It should be noted that the global total of GCEBs around 2020 should be around 800, corresponding for example to 3200 nuclear reactors! The market potentially open to CSS would be that of new power plants commissioned between 2000 and 2020 (WEC) or 2025 (WCRU). Under these conditions, Table 7 gives the number of CSSs to be built in two hypotheses of penetration rates on this market: 10% and 50%. In the second case, which would be that of massive use of CSSs, the number of these would exceed 200. If we assume the technological and economic success of CSSs, we must therefore envisage extremely high construction rates for these power plants: around 10 units per year. Maps 1 and 2 show the geographical distribution of CSS reception antennas in 2025 (WCRU scenario) and 2020 (WEC) assuming a 50% penetration rate on the GCEB market. V. POSITION IN RELATION TO COMPETITIVE ENERGY SYSTEMS By the year 2000, the energy systems capable of supplying basic electricity in large quantities appear to us to be relatively few in number. The need saving oil and natural gas will probably lead to the disappearance of power plants using these fuels. On the other hand, natural uranium reserves do not seem sufficient for the operation of conventional nuclear power plants (of the LWR type) to intensify at the beginning of the 21st century. Under these conditions, only four energy systems seem likely to compete on the GCEB market after the year 2000: • Coal-fired power plants • Fast breeder nuclear reactors • Thermonuclear fusion reactors • and space solar power plants. The systems of the first two types are naturally the most technologically advanced. Under these conditions, they certainly have a significant chance of experiencing broad economic success. It should be noted, however, that both of these systems may see their development limited for major ecological reasons: - if it turns out that the increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide rate is a real threat to the climate, coalfired power stations, or any other coal-fired power stations, fossil fuels, which naturally release carbon dioxide, could be abandoned, - the environmental and safety problems posed by the use of breeder reactors, and the storage of radioactive waste, could lead to a renunciation, or at least a limitation, of the use of nuclear energy systems. The other two systems considered are much more prospective. However, a profound difference should be noted between the stages they have reached: the scientific feasibility of thermonuclear fusion has not yet been established, and therefore it is possible that the year 2000 is too close for the operational implementation of this technology; the feasibility of CSS is, on the other hand, practically certain, insofar as the necessary techniques (space transport, photovoltaic conversion, microwave transmission) are already in use. Compared to current know-how, the realization of a CSS would essentially constitute a change of scale. Its main unknown would be financial, not technological. Another comparison is worth making between thermonuclear fusion and CSS. It is generally believed that research budgets on fusion (several hundred million dollars in the USA) are much larger than those devoted to CSS (a few million dollars in the DOE
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