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shortages with an eye to the future consequences of our actions on 
man’s total environment. Perhaps we are not adequately equipped at 
present with the institutional mechanisms (social, economic, political) 
to completely resolve issues brought on by the preponderance of man’s 
presence on this earth. Until we become so equipped, we can turn to 
technology to provide the short-run solutions to pressing problems 
such as the one here described—trealizing at all times that we are just 
buying time and that the consequences of failure at some later time 
may be all the more severe. 
It is in this context that I present a concept that strikes at the 
heart of the power production issue, providing relief for pressing 
problems and holding great promise for the future. This concept has 
the relatively unique feature that it holds the potential for simul- 
taneous solution of the two major difficulties faced by the power 
industry—construction delays and_ site selection and approval— 
without placing additional stress on the financing aspects of the overall 
situation, while removing a serious area of contention and conflict 
from the already overburdened shoulders of land-use planners. The 
general features of this concept are described in the remainder of this 
article. 
II]. THE OFFSHORE CONCEPT 
In recent years the concept of locating large electric generating 
stations at offshore sites has gained increasing attention. There are a 
number of extremely attractive aspects to this concept. One is the 
potential elimination of many of the difficulties associated with the 
selection and approval of sites. Questions of land cost and availability 
are no longer relevant; competition with industrial and other devel- 
opment interests would be nonexistent; use of the ocean’s capacity 
for cooling seems to be the only answer to the environmental problems 
of thermal pollution; and siting of plants offshore allows new flexibility 
in locating close to the load, especially as our population concentration 
shifts to the coastal perimeters of the Nation, where land is already 
at a premium. Hence, nearly all the problems of land-use manage- 
ment associated with the siting of power generating facilities can be 
effectively obviated. 
The second major advantage of great importance is the amenability 
of many offshore designs to shipyard construction. While U.S. ship- 
yards are presently operating with a backlog of orders, their utilization 
is subject to large variations depending on the construction plans of 
the U.S. Navy. This is because the U.S. yards are generally not com- 
petitive on the world market, the costs of a given shipyard produet are 
approximately 20 percent less in Europe and 35 percent less in Japan, 
where shipyards are larger. Diversion of American shipyards to the 
mass construction of powerplants might constitute a more efficient use 
of this well-developed resource while haying beneficial side effects on 
regional economies. Shipyards are geared to hold tight construction 
schedules. For example, it is estimated (14) that large (43,000 ton dis- 
placement) nuclear-powered containerships could be produced in as 
short. a time as 18 months, at a shipyard price of $40 million. Com- 
pared to these ships, a powerplant is a very high value product: A 
1,000 megawatt nuclear plant now costs a utility over $200 million. 
Furthermore, like ships, powerplants could become an important 
regional export industry. The market for the eastern and gulf coasts of 
