0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright 1 1983 SUN SAT Energy Council ENERGY FROM SPACE: A VISION OF THE FUTURE PETER JANKOWITSCH Austrian National Assembly Parliament A 1017 Vienna, Austria Abstract — The SPS is one of the most promising nonpolluting power generation options which could contribute to meeting global energy demands in the 21st century. With proper organization and foresight, the nations of the world may one day collaborate in establishing a satellite solar power system to resolve their energy needs. INTELSAT and INMARSAT have emerged to provide exciting examples of the feasibility of such international efforts. The implications of SPS deployment are international in scope. An SPS would use outer space and radio frequency spectrum resources that are within the international domain. SPS would be subject to the present legal regime governing activities in outer space which encompasses two international organizations and three treaties. The world energy crisis of the seventies provided a severe, yet perhaps overdue awakening to nations of this planet long accustomed to abundant and inexpensive energy access. The era of abundant fossil fuels has ended. For nations in which energy had not yet achieved great status, the energy crisis constituted a grave setback to all established plans of economic and social development. As a result, the decade of the eighties will prove a period of intensive energy research and experimentation as national priorities are reexamined and adjusted to suit today's energy realities. For nations across the globe, the search for energy resources has seriously begun. For the developing countries, however, this search is both vital and urgent. Huge energy supplies will have to become available if the developing countries are to approach the economic level of industrialized countries. The future energy resource requirements of developing countries will be more than four times the total world energy production of 1970. As industrial countries will remain major users of the world’s energy resources, the prospect of supplying the equivalent of 30 billion metric tons to meet the aspirations of developing countries and the resulting global environmental effects, demonstrate that solar energy would have to play an increasingly important role. Solar energy could provide for virtually unlimited amounts of nonpolluting energy to meet all conceivable future needs. Yet, today, we are using practically no solar energy. Instead, we are burning cheap oil and gas and cheap oil and gas are limited resources. In principle, we have infinite energy in a finite world; whereas, in reality, we are using finite energy in a world that was, until recently, perceived to be infinite. Obviously, we cannot easily switch from the way we use our energy resources now to a future where we will use renewable resources. The advantages of solar power, whether collected in space or on Earth, are several. First among these is its flexibility in application on Earth. Solar energy can be used for heating, for producing synthetic liquid or gaseous fuel, for providing elec-
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