Value chain · CLM-1022
In plain terms
A loss you can make up by adding solar panels costs about 56 million dollars per percentage point; a loss at the ionospheric ceiling costs eleven times that, because there is no more beam to give. That is why the ionospheric limit matters economically, and it is the first price on the timing-error budget.
The claim as recorded
The programme's 1981 cost sensitivity distinguishes losses that can be compensated by adding solar array, worth $56 million per 1 per cent, from losses that cannot because the system operates at the ionospheric power-density limit, worth $617 million per 1 per cent in revenue over 30 years at 47 mills/kWh; a 10 per cent change in each loss term is priced at $1,063 million for rectenna conversion (uncompensable) or $96 million if compensable, $93 million klystron conversion, $36 million antenna taper, $31 million tube failures, $21 million phase errors, $15 million antenna surface tolerances, $11 million waveguide I2R, $0.8 million for antenna tilt doubling from 1 to 2 arc-minutes, and $0.34 million amplitude error.
Evidence behind this: T3-programme office cost sensitivity, 1979 dollars.
Scope and limits
1979 dollars, a 5 GW reference and 47 mills/kWh; the figure's "type A" and "type B" correspond to the text's types 1 and 2. The phase-error and tilt terms are priced for a 10 per cent change in the loss, not for a degree or an arc-minute. Figure IV-6's bar values are read from the render, not derived: the page does not show their derivation and they do not follow from the stated rates by a simple construction (10 per cent of Figure IV-5's 640 MW rectenna conversion loss, times 0.97 to the busbar, at $617 million per 1 per cent of 5 GW gives about $766 million, not $1,063 million).
What it assumes
The reference system at the 23 mW/cm2 limit, so every downstream loss is of the uncompensable kind.
Where it comes from
PDF p.87, raw: "$56 million" and "$617 million", "47 mills"; PDF p.88, normalised with faults: "The rectenna conversion efficiency has the greatest impact because of the premise that the system is ope-ating at the ionospheric limit." Figure IV-6, PDF p.92, from the render: the ten loss terms with their 10 per cent impacts as listed, "1063" and "21" present in the text layer.
Basis: 1979 USD per 1 per cent or 10 per cent change in a loss term, 5 GW reference, 47 mills/kWh, 30 years
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-038 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1022
CLM-1022, Energy Aperture, as of 1981.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-554
- CLM-0911If the steering signal from the ground stops, the 1978 design's beam does not carry on pointing somewhere. It falls apart, and the power on...CLM-1017By 1981 the programme itself said the ionospheric limit it had designed to was probably too cautious, and worked out what relaxing it to...CLM-1018Three years of study left the efficiency chain exactly where 1978 put it, and Boeing's own version says out loud the solar constant the...CLM-1019The programme gave three reasons for choosing the klystron; the company that designed the satellite said the choice was more or less...CLM-1020By 1981 the programme was confident the beam could be pointed and formed, and named the network that carries the timing reference across...CLM-1087When the programme wrote down why it used 2.45 GHz, its reasons were consistent: each time it named the industrial band and how the beam...CLM-1091The people running the programme said 2.45 GHz was sensible and also said, in the same breath, that nobody international had agreed to it...CLM-1478Almost everything that can go wrong with this design makes the beam fall apart and become harmless, which is the right way to fail. Two...