And then the article has this graph where you can see the price of electricity taking off in the '70s and early '80s.
However, the vertical axis tells us the prices are in current cents (not inflation adjusted). Between 1970 and 2000 prices went up 6.6x, so the the 8 cent price in 2000 is lower than the 2.5 cent price in 1970.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
DB2