According to The Curve of Binding Energy, nuclear power was going to be subsidized by the sale of plutonium to the AEC. At about a megabuck per kilogram of plu,

According to The Curve of Binding Energy, nuclear power was going to be subsidized by the sale of plutonium to the AEC. At about a megabuck per kilogram of plu, the sale of plu would pay for the cost of constructing and operating a nuclear power plant, and that lead to the AEC's Chairman claiming that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter" because it would be a by-product of the nuclear fuel cycle. At the end of 2005, there were 1700 tons of privately owned plutonium in the US (the US military has about 100 tons of plu: about 2/3 are in actual weapons). http://www.amazon.com/Curve-Binding-Energy-Alarming-Theodore/dp/0374515980 http://www.amazon.com/Curve-Binding-Energy-Alarming-Theodore... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7006056.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7006056.stm If his claim is true, then it wasn't tree-huggers who killed off the nuclear power industry, nor Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, it was cold economics.