Value chain · CLM-1168
In plain terms
In 1978 the receiving station was expected to warm its surroundings about as much as a suburb does, unless the beam went astray; one Skylab launch had already punched a 2,000 km hole in the ionosphere for hours, and only preliminary calculations existed for what daily launches would do; water dumped above 40 km was the open climate question.
The claim as recorded
The 1978 preliminary assessment's atmospheric findings: rectenna waste heat "would produce about the same heat-island effects as a suburban area" and beam attenuation in the troposphere "will be small and will not produce significant disturbances of meteorological consequence on any scale", but a workshop panel "recommended that increases in waste heat release of up to an order of magnitude should be considered in order to account for the possible loss of beam control in worst-case situations"; rocket effluents deplete the F2 region, "In the case of the 1973 NASA Skylab launch, the depleted region covered an area 2000 km in width for a period of several hours", with "only individual rocket launch effects ... observed and only preliminary calculations of multiple launch effects"; beyond 500 km the effluent is "heavy ions (argon ions)"; and "The potential exists for significant impacts due to injections of water at altitudes above about 40 km and to the production of nitric oxide in the mesosphere during the reentry of the second stages", though climatic effects "are not expected to be highly significant, although considerable uncertainty exists".
Evidence behind this: T3-programme summary of preliminary qualitative analyses and a workshop recommendation; one observational figure (Skylab 1973) cited without its source in this volume.
Scope and limits
QUALITATIVE THROUGHOUT: no heat-island temperature or W/m2, no depletion size for an SPS launch, no water or NO mass; the Skylab figure is cited without a source in this volume. The argon-ion effluent belongs to the 1978 electric OTV and is superseded with it.
What it assumes
The rectenna's waste heat is the beam's unconverted fraction at the reference efficiency; the volume gives no wattage.
Where it comes from
PDF 30 / printed 28: "released at the rectenna site would produce about the same heat-island effects as a suburban area" (normalised); "the attenuation of the microwave beam in the troposphere will be small and will not produce significant disturbances of meteorological consequence on any scale" (normalised); "the panel recommended that increases in waste heat release of up to an order of magnitude should be considered in order to account for the possible loss of beam control in worst-case situations" (normalised). PDF 33 / printed 31: "In the case of the 1973 NASA Skylab launch, the depleted region covered an area 2000 km in width for a period of several hours" (normalised); "To date only individual rocket launch effects have been observed and only preliminary calculations of multiple launch effects have been attempted" (normalised); "Beyond 500 km the major rocket propulsion system effluents will be heavy ions (argon ions) with smaller amounts of chemical propellants" (normalised). PDF 34 / printed 32: "The potential exists for significant impacts due to injections of water at altitudes above about 40 km and to the production of nitric oxide in the mesosphere during the reentry of the second stages" (normalised); "Climatic effects that may arise from SPS-related perturbations in stratospheric and mesospheric composition are not expected to be highly significant, although considerable uncertainty exists in this regard" (normalised).
Basis: heat-island comparison; km of ionospheric depletion; km altitude of effluent injection
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1168
CLM-1168, Energy Aperture, as of 1978-10.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-500
- CLM-1165In 1978 the government said plainly what it did not know about a space power station's effects: almost nothing about long, low-level...CLM-1166An early tally of ordinary industrial harm from building the system: about twenty-five million lost working days from injuries over thirty...CLM-1167For the launches the 1978 assessment could only line up the rulebook - allowed minutes of rocket exhaust gases for the public, the EPA's...