“Too Cheap to Meter”: A History of the Phrase (2016)

He noted that Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss, in a 1954 address to science writers, had coined the phrase to describe fusion power, not fission. *

Nuclear critics believe Strauss was speaking of nuclear power and claim that, as AEC Chairman, he spoke for a budding industry too. In the years after the speech, the lay public and the power industry never questioned that Strauss’s predictions were for fission power.

Source: public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov