This thing? The key sentence seems to be

The towns had invested in power plants as a hedge against unpredictable energy costs, but their economic bet backfired when nuclear costs skyrocketed in the wake of the 1979 nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.

That agrees with my previous impression, which is that nuclear power is currently too expensive to be viable without government subsidies. But I guess passive_fist is comparing nuclear against solar power, rather than against the cheapest available power, so nuclear could still be the better choice between the two.