"Too Cheap To Meter"

["jjcohen" <jjcohen@PRODIGY.NET>]

Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day! [FW]    I have a theory on how the nuclear power industry degenerated to its current condition. 

When Lewis Strauss gave his "too cheap to meter" statement, it reflected a reasonable estimate of the situation at the time. However, what happened later changed things considerably. A growing radiophobia gave rise to severely restrictive regulation that caused significantly increased costs for generating nuclear electricity. The industry passively accepted and implemented excessive safety requirements because: (1) the incremental cost of each restriction was too small to fight,  (2) since the electricity rates were regulated by PUC's, these  "safety" costs could be passed on to the consumer and had little, if any, effect on industry profits and (3) nuclear safety itself became a profitable enterprise and those engaged in it became proponents.. The net effect was to erode any economic advantage of that nuclear power might have, but a more serious effect was to reinforce public fears (extreme safety controls would  be unnecessary if nuclear energy was not so extremely dangero

us). As a result, the nuclear power industry is held to a much higher safety standard than any equivalent industry and  suffers the resultant economic and public acceptance penalties.











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

  From: Franta, Jaroslav 

  To: Radsafe (E-mail) 

  Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 5:41 AM

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





  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."