The fusion tech was the last plant available...if you started in the first year, it was either coal or oil, both of which were horrible polluters and not cost effective at all.
I usually started my games past the 1990's, when fusion was almost available. They cost (I think) 50,000 a piece, and you would need at least 4 to run a big city, but they were worth it.
My first city hit over 2 million on my own...I saw the roadless city at a fan site, and got my idea for a rail only city from there. I didn't totally ape it, but it gave me the blueprint.
SimCity 3000 (and SimCity 3000 Unlimited) were pretty fun, but flawed with a good number of bugs that Maxis/EA were either too lazy or stooopid to fix. If you can look past that, it was a fun game. It has to be very cheap on eBay considering I played it close to ten years ago...
With the computers I have today, I probably have to buy one of the older games if I want to make it work.
