SRC-601

Solar Power Satellites (August 1981)

Commissioned by House Committee on Science and Technology. 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-1283 In 1981 the US Congress's technology office worked out that keeping the edge of a receiving site to the Soviet limit would make each site about ten times bigger, close to 1,700 square kilometres. That limit is ten times stricter than the American design boundary.
• CLM-1284 In 1981 the US Congress's technology office said there was not enough evidence to judge the health risk of living near a power-satellite receiver for years. It expected little harm outside the site, could not rule out effects inside it, and said this research should come first.
• CLM-1285 In 1981 the Soviet limit for workers was a thousand times stricter than the US one, and the US had no public limit at all. Congress's technology office expected US limits to tighten and said the design should be checked against that.
• CLM-1286 The 1981 congressional assessment listed who would be exposed to the beam and how strongly. Levels ran from a ten-thousandth of a milliwatt per square centimetre for the public to about 2 watts for workers at the satellite's antenna, and it said no one could yet say what was safe for workers.
• CLM-1446 The 1977-80 US government programme did not decide for or against power satellites. It said questions on technology, environment and cost were still open, that a satellite would cost more to build, and less predictably, than conventional power stations, but that the range of its electricity costs was similar to that of other new options of the time, fusion and solar cells. A separate 1981 review for the US Congress said too little was known to decide, that the basic technologies had been shown to be feasible except lasers, and that, except perhaps for fusion, the up-front cost would be much higher than for other large power stations.

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