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Mr. Becker, the 1992 Nobel economics laureate, is professor of economics at the University of Chicago and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

If the global warming fear-mongers really believed their rhetoric, they would be knocking down doors for more nuclear power plants. But somehow the Greenies only seem to be interested on placing taxes on rich countries and distributing it to poor countries. For some reason real solutions are ignored for phony ones.

Sure it makes sense. But what does that have to do with anything?

In NH, the cost calculation for power produced by the Seabrook nuke has changed since it was built. Initially, a projected cost for the decommission of the plant was added to the price for every kWh and many of us know that the cost to build the plant was so high and money borrowed was at such a high interest rate (during the Carter years) that the possibility that the power costs would ever be low enough to make this plant's production affordable. It was never affordable even at rates twice that of competition or three times that of Quebec Hydro. Many NH consumers were held hostage by partnership agreements made with the plant's builder, PSCO NH.

The plant's owner threatened bankruptcy and a series of laws were passed to stick the stranded costs of the nuke directly with the electric customers in NH without regard for production. The plant was sold at a fraction of the sunk costs of the plant. So now the new owner can sell power at reduced costs and appear to make a profit. With the original owner, even at full production, the plant lost a fortune because of the carrying costs of the project.

So now the new calculation makes it seem the plant is making money and the rates seem cheap only because the customers are picking up the tab whether or not they are using any of the power produced. It is called stranded costs and we pay though the nose. Add it all up and folks in NH have the highest costs for power in the nation.

To top it all off, if nuclear power plant owners had to fund the project designed to forever store nuclear waste, and put money in escrow for decommissioning, then I think the cost of nuclear power would increase dramatically. In the end however, the lesson of the Seabrook nuke is quite simple. If nukes are to be built they must be built on a proved and standard design, not a custom idea like Seabrook. Use nonunion labor as the unions milked the job at Seabrook as I have direct knowledge of the actions by the unions which cost the project management company tens of millions. Standardize, Standardize, period.

Ever since the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979

TMI melted down?

I thought it was just a small leak inside the containment vessel.