EXPIRES: 1975

WRITTEN: 1954-09-16

It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.

Lewis L. Strauss

Speech to the National Association of Science Writers, September 16, 1954. Reprinted in The New York Times, September 17, 1954

Written: 1954-09-16

Addressed to: within a generation (by 1975-1980)

Source: Speech to the National Association of Science Writers

Author: Lewis L. Strauss

Category: Technology

Annotation

The AEC chairman's remark became the most quoted broken promise of the nuclear age. Whether Strauss was referring to fission or fusion remains debated (he may have meant hydrogen fusion). Either way, nuclear electricity never became too cheap to meter. The phrase endured as shorthand for technological hubris and the gap between atomic enthusiasm and economic reality.

What Actually Happened

Nuclear power provided about 10% of global electricity by 2020, at costs comparable to or higher than fossil fuels. The phrase 'too cheap to meter' became proverbial for unfulfilled technological promises.

#nuclear-power#electricity#AEC#hubris#energy-economics

2000

Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.

John Elfreth Watkins Jr.

2035

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.

Nikola Tesla

1980

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, 'memex' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.

Vannevar Bush