7. Key Findings and Recommendations The following are some of the primary findings and principle recommendations that have emerged from NASA’s “fresh look” at the feasibility of generating solar power in space for use on the Earth. 7.1. Markets The market for space solar power is a global one. It seems likely that the U.S. domestic market will remain largely unreachable for space solar power for the foreseeable future. However, with only a few - local and typically small-scale - exceptions the same is true for virtually all major new renewable or alternative power sources in the absence of government incentives of one sort or another. Demand for new electrical power generating capacity in the U.S. and other OECD nations is growing far more slowly than that in the remainder of the world. Moreover, in the United States at least, the existing baseload power generation capacity and the robust and large electrical power transmission grid that is already in place, in combination with large domestic reservoirs of both natural gas and coal, create a basis for very low cost domestic electrical power generation. This U.S. domestic market environment is expected to continue for perhaps the next two decades. On the other hand, projected growth in new generating capacity and new power transmission systems throughout the developing world is very substantial While electrical generating capacity growth in OECD countries is about 1.4% per year, growth in the world overall is about 2.5% pear year. The current world electrical power generating capacity is projected to increase from about 11-12 TW today to more than 20 TW within 20 years. This projected growth is founded on anticipated large increases in per capita demand and continuing increases in world population. The target markets used in this study covered the full spectrum of global energy service opportunities, including: Mega-City markets, City markets, Mega-Town markets, Towns, and Remote Sites. Sites around the world were examined as potential targets for SSP energy services. One of the best nearer-term opportunities for establishing SSP services appears to be in the Mega-Town markets (about 100,000-1,000,000 inhabitants and a demand for new generating capacity of about 1,000 W per inhabitant). One of the more promising concepts examined in the SSP “fresh look” study - the “Sun Tower” has been developed specifically to address these markets. In addition, there is a tremendous uncertainty concerning how the OECD and non-OECD nations will collectively deal with the challenge of greenhouse gas emissions and compliance with the existing terms of internationally-established environmental goals. If there were to be later decisions, international or national to move toward applying both direct and so-called “externality charges” to electric power price rates, the impact on the economic viability of space solar power would be substantial Including factors such as regulatory surcharges and payments into clean-up funds to establish a higher market price for renewable power sources, such externality charges could as much as double the internal rate of return for a typical SSP venture examined in the study (for example, for the MEO SunTower case, increasing the IRR from about 14% to about 28%).
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