Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day! [FW]

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA>]

A colleague posted this on another listserv yesterday.....



Jaro 



-----Original Message-----

From: Brown, Morgan [mailto:brownmj@aecl.ca]

Sent: Thursday September 16, 2004 5:13 PM

To: Cdn-Nucl-L (E-mail)

Subject: [cdn-nucl-l] Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day!



It was 50 years ago today that Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, chairman of the

US Atomic Energy Commission, said: 

"It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes

electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional

famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly

over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger

and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours as

disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age."

Strauss was speaking to the National Association of Science Writers in New

York City, and was being poetic about his vision of the future.  "Too cheap

to meter" was just one of his litany of phrases, but it is the only one

which has been remembered.   In subsequent years, attempts were made to pin

it to the nuclear industry as a whole, as if one man's vision had been a

promise.  It has been repeatedly inflicted on the public, because it's cute,

catchy and empty of substance.  Amazingly, it gets dragged up even today,

because some people and organizations have nothing new to say.

Strauss comment was not a promise of the nuclear industry.  I compiled a

number of quotes from the time period, before and after Strauss' speech;

none indicate anything but a rational technical approach to the economics of

nuclear power.  



To read further:



1) visit www.cns-snc.ca 

2) click on "Media" on the side bar 

3) scroll down to the "CNS Response to Media Articles and Reports on Nuclear

Science and Technology" section 

4) click "Too Cheap To Meter?" 

Or go directly to http://www.cns-snc.ca/media/toocheap/toocheap.html 



cheers 



Morgan Brown, P.Eng. 

*   Chair of the Chalk River Branch 

*   Webmaster 

Canadian Nuclear Society / Société Nucléaire Canadienne 

www.cns-snc.ca 

(613) 584-8811 extn 4247 

Fax: (613) 584-8220 

brownmj@aecl.ca