Too cheap to meter: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:02, 29 January 2020

Revision as of 20:16, 29 January 2020

Line 19:

<blockquote>Dr. Lawrence Hafstad, whom all of you surely know, happens to be speaking, today, in Brussels before the Congress of Industrial Chemistry. He heads the Reactor Development Division of the Atomic Energy Commission. Therefore, he expects to be asked, "How soon will you have industrial atomic electric power in the United States?" His answer is "from 5 to 15 years depending on the vigor of the development effort."{{sfn|Strauss|1954|p=9}}</blockquote>

This statement is referring directly to fission reactors and immediately precedes the "too cheap to meter" statement.{{sfn|Strauss|1954|p=9}} The same is true of his statements on ''Meet the Press'', which are a direct reply to a question about fission.

The speech as a whole contains large sections about the development of fission power, and the difficulties the Commission was having communicating this fact. He wryly notes receiving letters addressed to the "Atomic Bomb Commission" and then quotes a study that demonstrates the public is largely ignorant of the development of atomic power.{{sfn|Strauss|1954|p=5}} He goes on to briefly recount the development of fission, noting a letter from [[Leo Szilard]] of sixteen years earlier where he speaks of the possibility of a [[chain reaction]].{{sfn|Strauss|1954|p=7}}

Only a few days later, Strauss was a guest on ''[[Meet the Press]]''. When the reporters asked him about the quotation and the viability of "commercial power from atomic piles", Strauss replied that he expected his children and grandchildren would have power "too cheap to be metered, just as we have water today that's too cheap to be metered."{{sfn|Wellock|2016}} Once again, Strauss is directly referring to fission. A later examination of the topic concluded: "there is no evidence in Strauss's papers at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library to indicate fusion was the hidden subject of his speech."{{sfn|Wellock|2016}}

Strauss viewed hydrogen fusion as the ultimate power source. He was eager to develop the technology as quickly as possible and urged the Project Sherwood researchers to make rapid progress, even suggesting a million-dollar prize to the individual or team that succeeded first.<ref>Bromberg, Joan Lisa (1982) ''Fusion: Science, Politics, and the Invention of a New Energy Source'' MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, [https://archive.org/details/fusionsciencepol0000brom/page/97 p. 44], {{ISBN|0-262-02180-3}}</ref> However Strauss was not optimistic about the rapid commercialization of fusion power. In August 1955 after fusion research was made public, he cautioned "there has been nothing in the nature of breakthroughs that would warrant anyone assuming that this [fusion power] was anything except a very long range—and I would accent the word 'very'—prospect."{{sfn|Wellock|2016}}