Value chain · CLM-1007
In plain terms
The 1980 assessment worked out that a full American deployment would raise the microwave background everywhere in the country to about twenty times what people were then typically exposed to, though it said the two could not be compared directly because the frequencies differ. It said a risk assessment had to be done before building. No such assessment is held.
The claim as recorded
The DOE 1980 summary states that with 60 rectennas in the continental United States spaced about 300 km apart the beam tails would combine so that "the minimum power density at any point would be about 0.0001 mW/cm2", that the EPA's 15-city, 486-site survey found a median time-averaged exposure of 0.005 uW/cm2 for 20 per cent of the US population with under 1 per cent above 1 uW/cm2, and concludes that "nearly all of the general population would be exposed to levels significantly greater than the current background levels. Before these rectennas are constructed, a quantitative assessment of the risk associated with this exposure must be developed."
Evidence behind this: T3-programme summary assessment; a beam-tail calculation set against an EPA survey.
Scope and limits
The source itself says "Direct comparison with SPS microwaves cannot be made because of the frequency difference" (the ambient survey is dominated by 88-108 MHz FM). The 0.0001 mW/cm2 floor is a beam-tail calculation, not a measurement, and the assessment offers no health interpretation of it.
What it assumes
The 60-rectenna, 300 km deployment of the 1978 Reference System.
Where it comes from
p.19 / 9: "If there were 60 rectennas in the continental United States spaced an average of 300 km apart, the tails of the power beam patterns would combine and the minimum power density at any point would be about 0.0001 mW/cm2." p.23 / 13: "the median exposure value is 0.005 uW/cm2 time-averaged power density. Less than 1% of the population is potentially exposed to levels above 1 uW/cm2 ... These ambient levels may be compared with the 0.1-uW/cm2 minimum level expected if 60 rectennas were constructed ... nearly all of the general population would be exposed to levels significantly greater than the current background levels." Render read. 0.1 / 0.005 = 20, arithmetic on the two figures.
Basis: mW/cm2 and uW/cm2, time-averaged
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-001 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1007
CLM-1007, Energy Aperture, as of 1980-08.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-086
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- Also from SRC-529
- CLM-1005The 1980 assessment explains where the 10 milliwatt limit came from: a heating threshold of 100 divided by a safety factor of ten. It also...CLM-1006In 1980, by the US assessment's figures, the Soviet limit for the general public was two thousand times lower than the American 10...CLM-1008The 1980 documents give the beam's strength at the satellite, on failure, and above and below the receiving panels. The summary and the...CLM-1009The 1980 programme tested bees because of pollination. Early results showed no effect at the beam's strength, and one preliminary report...CLM-1010In the US Department of Energy's 1980 assessments the only bird numbers were from quail eggs at a fifth of the beam's peak, which hatched...CLM-1011In 1980 the programme used two different rules to translate its low-frequency experiments to the real beam, one for heating and one for the...CLM-1012In the DOE's 1980 summary the Platteville heating tests showed no effect on the navigation and broadcast radio it listed at the beam's...CLM-1013By 1980 the programme had made the upper ionosphere ripple with a heater running at what it reckoned was four to twelve times the beam's...More on the source page.