The Other Side of SPS

> How much would a recieving station cost, where could it be located,
> and what kind of maintenance are required?

Ideal location would be where there's already installed electrical
transmission - i.e. in or near existing power plants. Those are
generally pretty well isolated already. Cost estimates I've seen are
about 1/10th the cost of the space components; i.e. for a $5 billion
system delivering a few GW of power, the ground station would likely be
somewhat under $500 million. Ballpark figures. Maintenance shouldn't be
bad - repair of damaged components etc. No moving parts, so it should
be basically the same as maintenance for an existing power plant's
electrical components - transformers, power conditioners, computer
controls etc.

>
> In North America today, the neglect of a generation has left the
> electrical grid in very bad shape. The estimate in August 2003 was 100
> billion to repair it. How would that repair requirements impact SPS.
> Will it. Can building recieving antennas be piggy backed on those
> costs, or are they different costs.

Different costs. Replacing coal plants with SPS receivers would have
little to no impact on the grid. Replacing our current use of oil and
other non-electric fuel needs would require either more grid capacity,
or industrial use of the electricity close to the source - for example
hydrogen electrolysis (likely not to be economically sound, though) or
production of fertilizers for biofuels, or other mechanisms for
converting electrical energy into fuel for transport. But the cost of
tripling our grid capacity (which is about what it would take for all
energy use to be supported by electric power) is minor compared to the
trillions of dollars involved in replacing the power plants themselves.

Arthur