When it comes to electricity generation, the question in the end is, over the lifetime of production, what is the cost/benefit - with all costs accounted for - including embedded energy, consumption of finite resources, and externalities (pollution, environmental degradation, and health effects).
It's interesting that the externilizers choose to ignore the cost of intermittent and unreliable power.
It's interesting that some people are so blinded by political prejudice that they are incapable of reading the statement "with all costs accounted for".
Yes, especially when I've repeatedly posted about the fact that intermittency is the reason why there is no way to completely replace fossil fuels for electricity production at the scale it is currently done. In fact that was a major point of my post in this thread (see post #148) just 2 days ago!.
It just proves the point that "too often the discussion strays away from discussion of these facts, as those with a political agenda seek to steer the discussion in the direction of their ideology"
As far as the issue of intermittency - I don't see it as a cost so much as it is a major omission from the benefit column. But regardless of how you slice it, it is the Achilles heel of most renewables (hydro being the major exception).
As far as external costs go, those who try to avoid discussing them are just demonstrating their political nature.
It's really too bad on an engineering forum we can't just keep the discussion focused on the facts.
(BTW - one cannot be an "externalizer" and one cannot "externalize". That's just nonsense political speak. Something either has external costs or not. One can choose to ignore them or not, but they exist nevertheless)