The intermittency of wind, solar, and renewable electricity generators: Technical barrier or rhetorical excuse?

A consensus has long existed within the electric utility sector of the United States that renewable electricity generators such as wind and solar are unreliable and intermittent to a degree that they will never be able to contribute significantly to electric utility supply or provide baseload power. This paper asks three interconnected questions: What do energy experts really think about renewables in the United States? To what degree are conventional baseload units reliable? Is intermittency a justifiable reason to reject renewable electricity resources?