SRC-527

Comparative Assessment of Environmental Welfare Issues Associated with the Satellite Power System (SPS) and Alternative Technologies; DOE/ER-0055; April 1980

Commissioned by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Research, Satellite Power System Project Division; Under Contract No. 31-109-ENG-38. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-1052 In 1980 the programme's own numbers had a receiving site of about 200 square kilometres per satellite once a safety margin was included, roughly the same land per unit of energy as ground solar of the day and far more than a coal or nuclear plant, but with no mines or waste sites behind it; and the authors said not to add the columns up.
• CLM-1054 The programme reckoned a receiving site would give off about as much heat per square metre as a suburb, a tenth of what the sun puts into the ground, enough for a degree of local warming in still air; one of its two reports prints the figure a hundred times too small, and the climate report suspects that the structure's roughness and reflectivity matter more than the heat.
• CLM-1055 The programme's 1980 look at nuisance and property effects gave space solar its worst marks on six counts, mostly because nobody knew enough about it, and said so.

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