A HUGH chunk of the cost of building the plants in the 70's was the legal costs from the suits brought by the nuke wackos. Seabrook actually had TWO plants under contruction, but ended up only finishing one and bringing it online because it took 10 years of legal wrangling and all those costs involved just to get that ONE up and running. It would have taken them another 10 to get the second one going, and they just didn't want to spend that money that was essentially down the drain.
I don't believe that. These plants cost several billion each to build. The legal costs couldn't have been but a small fraction of the overall costs of building the plant. That sounds like a bogus excuse to me.