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NUCLEARSPACE MESSAGE BOARD (ACTIVE) -> ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT -> Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day!
Post Info TOPIC: Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day!
10kBq jaro

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Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day!
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A fun post by a colleague today, on the Canadian nuclear listserver :


From: cdn-nucl-l-admin@mailman1.cis.McMaster.CA [mailto:cdn-nucl-l-admin@mailman1.cis.McMaster.CA]On Behalf Of Brown, Morgan
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



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Brucie B.

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Nice article, but it makes no mention of the 'French nuclear model' as everyone knows France's electrical production runs on Nuke power plants at the tune of about 65-70%. Maybe it's 'Too much supply demands increased sales' I think that's the French idea or any country wishing to make some money.


If I'm not mistaken French power bills to the average French citizen could still be too high?


Personally, I see nothing wrong with any developing country the right to access nuke power plant technology so long as it's efficient, safe, affordable, secure and monitored by the IAEA etc. with fines & punishment for violators.


Maybe if there were adequate electrical power for everyone at an affordable cost. Could that mean a better standard of living and less strife??



                                                                         



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GoogleNaut

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I have always felt that access to cheap and plentiful energy could only act as an economic catalyst. If you really want to stimulate economic growth--cheap energy is the way to do it!

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Brucie B.

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"I have always felt that access to cheap and plentiful energy could only act as an economic catalyst."


I agree with you here, but how to you convince French gov't and energy industry to pass on savings of domestic power production to domestic users when power is sold throughout the rest of Europe to increase profit for French industry and gov't? 



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GoogleNaut

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Well, France is a democracy, isn't it? The French people will have to fix that! [i.e., that's their problem...]

As for here in the United States, precisely the same situation exists. We need to hold our Administrations accountable to their promises to fund research and development of new sources of energy. We need to move away from a fossil fuel dominated economy both for environmental and political reasons. We depend too much for an essential resource that comes from predominantly politically unstable regions. Our collective economies are literally held hostage to petroleum: we need to break away from this cycle. Nuclear power can help alleviate this problem.

The energy industry possesses enormous defacto power (no pun inteded here) over the economy: everything in the economy depends upon energy in one form another; thus, the price of energy has a direct link to economic growth. When the price of energy rises, ALL sectors of the economy are affected. Since all sectors of the economy are affected, the cost of energy is seen to be actually multiplicative!

It is therefore beneficial to all that the price of energy be low. Everybody will win. The consumers get the benefit of less expensive products. Companies benefit from more profits. The energy suppliers benefit because all of their product is sold.

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Brucie B.

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I agree with you GoogleNaut 100%...


That's why on the question of a U.S. coherent energy policy, I will not vote for the two gov't parties. I'll be voting for an alternative party this time around. The one that has nuclear power as a key role in providing affordable, safe, efficient electrical power for the U.S. not a policy where only 20% of electrical power generated in the U.S. is nuclear !



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GoogleNaut

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Energy is an often missed target of economic analysis; it is too important to leave out of any equation!

The United States' consumption of energy for economic growth drives us to consume vast amounts of oil. Displacing oil consumption by increasing efficiency is one thing--REplacing oil as a source of energy is an entirely different matter. Only concerted effort to utilize existing technologies (advanced nuclear fission) and/or investing in entirely new technologies (such as thermonuclear fusion power or Solar Power Satellites) will offer the potential to REPLACE petroleum as an energy source.

Until we replace petroleum as a transportation fuel, or power generation fuel, then we will continue to be enslaved to petroleum producing countries who supply our demand.

Replacing petroleum will take decades of concerted effort and will cost hundreds of billions of dollars (if not Trillions.) Ironically so much of the instability is caused (or atleast partially funded) by consumption of Middle East Oil, of which the US is the largest consumer I believe. If a way could be found so that we (the U.S. of A.) were no longer dependent upon the Middle East for oil, then we would no longer be at the whim of OPEC. Whether this radical shift in economic power will result in stability for the Middle East--I kind of doubt it. But they have to solve their own problems anyway, atleast the West won't be held hostage to Oil Consumption!

I kind of got off the beaten path there--but if any Administration can balance the petropolitics with a decisive and concerted energy policy with US energy Independence as the goal--then I am all for it. The clock is ticking--we've got maybe another fifty years before energy is going to get a whole lot more expensive....

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Brucie B.

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Well...again I agree with you.


I'm sorry if I'm going off topic also...but if I may be permited to comment; the major reason the politics of a coherent balance U.S. energy policy slanted toward petrochem/hydrocarbon is due to the reasons you just pointed out. KERRY OR BUSH will not change this policy, domestic alternative technology energy production is only given 'lip service' by these political parties and their leaders. Not to mention the U.S. public is too damn lazy to think and support the methods you just outlined until we get a strong leader and the political organization to right these wrongs we will be stuck with future 'Blackouts', expensive car gas and constant conflict.  It starts and ends with U.S. citizens that's why I will vote CONSTITUTIONAL PARTY IN 2004!


 



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GoogleNaut

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A little farther off-topic...
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I would even go farther: our country's survival may be at stake. That sounds overly alarmist--but I assure you it is not.

Unless we address these problems then several things will happen (some have already happened): outrageous price fluctuations (mostly up) of transportation and heating fuels; regional blackouts due to electrical over demand; general rise in cost of living driven by rising energy costs (driving increased prices in all sectors of the economy); deflation of the value of the dollar (we're already seeing this); increasing wages but loss of spending value (due to inflation of money supply AND deflation of value of dollar which at first seems to be contradictory but isn't.) If these trends continue there will come a point at which transportation fuels will be too expensive to transport goods to market; when this happens transportation infrastructure will fail. The resulting job loss will force many tens of millions onto welfare. The increased cost of welfare (now more than 55% of a nearly trillion dollar federal budget!) coupled with the loss of tax revenues (no income tax paid by the jobless) could break the back of the US Federal Government.

Should this happen, then a general infrastructure failue will result. Food riots are then just around the corner, fallowed by Chaos and/or Revolution. Probable result: National Calamity, millions dead from starvation, disease, and civil war. Global economic depression could result because all national economies are linked although I would expect Japan and Europe to try to isolate themselves from the Fall of the US of A. It wouldn't surpise me much if there was also a global war involved somewhere/sometime in this scenario.

This should scare the living daylights out of any sane person--this country is literally held together by a web of tractor-trailer trucks hauling milk, eggs, produce, tennis shoes, fuel and the millions of other items which are literally the lifeblood of the economy. Anything interrupting that flow will cause the economic heart of the country to fail. Now that isn't Alarmist: it's just commen sense!

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10kBq jaro

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RE: Happy "Too Cheap To Meter" day!
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Nuke industry types have expressed yet another concern in the past :  while a gradual, well-controlled build-up of nuke plants has been suppressed for decades, when the big energy crunch eventually dawns on people, there could suddenly be a crash program of nuke plant construction, with reduced QA, etc.   In the event the problem becomes acute enough, it might even lead to some severe accidents.... (although in certain types of plant designs, a severe accident is all but physically impossible... but it might be cheaper & quicker to build some less-safe designs, or just skimp on certain safety features, if the energy situation becomes desparate enough...).


A brave new world, courtesy of your friendly antinukes.


 



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publiusr

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Yep. I still want fusion, though.

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