Too cheap to meter

Good Day: Next Tuesday marks the 54th anniversary of one of the most widely quoted speeches in atomic history. On September 16, 1954, AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss delivered the attached speech before the Founders' Day Dinner of the National Association of Science Writers in New York City. On page two, Chairman Strauss uttered the infamous words, "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter." The billions of dollars of subsidies for new nuclear power reactors in the 2005 Energy bill may explain why this speech is found in the science fiction part of the NRC's library. Sadly, that placement makes it hard to find given the over-crowding in this section. And the document in the non-fiction section of the NRC's library is currently checked out. Thanks, Dave Lochbaum UCS AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss speech (pdf)