Nuclear somersault: New Energy Secretary changes his tune and says he won't block reactor plans

[caraher]

9. Please drop the stupid all caps

Especially when you make so many mistakes yourself. Read your own link and tell me how "science writers" in the piece you cite becomes "science fiction writers" when you summarize it here?

Lewis L. Strauss
Speech to the National Association of Science Writers, New York City, September 16th, 1954

I won't say you are "WRONG AS ALWAYS!" or "WRONG WRONG WRONG." But you are most certainly wrong.

You also misrepresent the historical context - September 1954 was when Eisenhower broke ground on the Shippingport plant. He was heavily promoting "Atoms for Peace," and was very interested in having an operating US power reactor for purely civilian use. So while there indeed were no nuclear power plants at the time, there was an intense interest in having them very soon, more for political than economic reasons. The lack of existing nuclear power plants is in fact precisely why there was a perceived need to introduce them to the public!

While it is indeed likely that Strauss had fusion in mind during his speech, the contemporary press certainly interpreted his reference as a reference to fission. Were there corrections at the time from Eisenhower, the AEC, Strauss himself? The power industry (which at the time wasn't particularly interested in nuclear, and thus should have been happy to set the record straight)? The real question isn't whether scientists and engineers at the time thought electricity from fission would be "too cheap to meter" (plainly they did not); it's what perception was allowed to develop in the public imagination.