Value chain · CLM-0932
In plain terms
A 2010 paper making the case for a national space solar power programme never works out a cost per unit of electricity, and its main system cost comes from an unpublished manuscript; one endnote does a rough fleet cost and return-on-investment sum. It also says the ionospheric and safety concerns look answered at a basic level, without giving a number.
The claim as recorded
A 2010 paper arguing for a national space solar power programme computes no levelised cost of electricity and cites an unpublished manuscript for its 1 GW system cost; an endnote (printed p.84) assumes about $15B per 10 GW satellite and rectenna, multiplies it for 55 satellites as "$820 billion" (55 x 15 = 825, our arithmetic) and states an Indian-GDP return on investment above 100:1. Printed p.24: "Costs for a 1 GW system range between a low $5.1 billion to $23.12 billion high after an R&D investment of $35-100 billion", attributed on the same page to "Wingo, Dennis, Unpublished Manuscript." No levelized cost of SBSP electricity is computed anywhere in its 175 pages. Every other per-kWh figure is terrestrial Indian context or the premium-niche argument, the latter itself quoted from another author: "the real cost of electricity to the military at the front lines is $23.9/kWh". It also treats the environmental question as settled without stating a figure, printed p.25: common concerns including the ionosphere "seem to be well answered at the basic level", though they "certainly deserve more study, particularly with reference to policymaker equities".
Evidence behind this: A single-author policy paper written for a national defence studies institute and republished in a themed journal issue - not a committee assessment and not a study group. Its technical content is carried in ENDNOTES as quotation of other authors, which is the reason for the T4 rather than the subject matter. Text layer clean: 80 hyphen line-break joins across 175 pages, 0.46 per page, and every quotation below matched RAW.
Scope and limits
THIS RECORDS WHAT THE DOCUMENT DOES AND DOES NOT CONTAIN, NOT WHETHER ITS FIGURES ARE WRONG. The $5.1-23.12 billion range may be sound; it cannot be checked, because its source is unpublished and this register does not hold it. THE $23.9/kWh IS QUOTED FROM ANOTHER AUTHOR and is a front-line military delivered cost, not a grid price, and must not be compared with a grid LCOE. THE 30 mW/cm2 IN THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT THE 23 mW/cm2 THIS REGISTER CARRIES AND THE TWO MUST NOT BE CONFLATED. Printed p.24, verbatim: "To put 30 mW/cm2 in perspective, the energy generated by a typical kitchen microwave oven is approximately 1,000 mW/cm2." It is offered as a peak beam density for a SAFETY comparison, in an endnote quoting a secondary source - not as an ionospheric limit - and a reader scanning this corpus for "mW/cm2" will find it beside CLM-0039's 23 and they are different quantities from different arguments. COVERAGE HAS NO CLEAN SPLIT: unlike SRC-054 and SRC-029 the endnote blocks are interleaved at chapter ends rather than gathered at the back, three of the four technical quotations come from those endnotes, and "175 pages" overstates the body. UNACQUIRABLE - UNPUBLISHED. The attribution is the citing document's own, verbatim at printed p.24: "Wingo, Dennis, Unpublished Manuscript." It gets no source row on the AQ1 grounds above. So the $5.1-23.12 billion range can never be traced past the citing document, and this record is the end of that chain rather than a step in it. The author's name is carried because it is the manuscript's only identifier.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
Read first-hand on registration; all matched RAW, no de-hyphenation required. Verbatim, printed p.24: "Costs for a 1 GW system range between a low $5.1 billion to $23.12 billion high after an R&D investment of $35-100 billion." Attribution verbatim, same page: "Wingo, Dennis, Unpublished Manuscript." Verbatim, printed p.25: "While such common concerns as safety of humans, wildlife, ionosphere, aircraft, large satellite and ground receiver vulnerability seem to be well answered at the basic level, they certainly deserve more study, particularly with reference to policymaker equities." Verbatim, printed p.149: "the real cost of electricity to the military at the front lines is $23.9/kWh". NULLS, SEARCHED RAW AND DE-HYPHENATED ACROSS ALL 175 PAGES: "end-to-end" 0, "systems analysis" 0, "Fresh Look" 0, "trade study" 0.
Basis: USD (system and R&D cost); mW/cm2 (power density)
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-002 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0932
CLM-0932, Energy Aperture, as of 2010.