You but your claim was that it was only possible to provide reliable supply by combining _reliable_ sources. This is not the case. Wind and solar are largely

You but your claim was that it was only possible to provide reliable supply by combining _reliable_ sources. This is not the case. Wind and solar are largely anti-correlated in most regions. Depending on the geography, differences in wind output can vary significantly over distances in as little 100km and offshore and on-shore capacity factors also tend to show divergence. At distances above 1,500km wind is uncorrelated in Europe. The stochastic failures of nuclear reactors are largely independent but not always - a natural catastrophe like Fukushima can take out a bunch of reactors. Or extreme weather (heat), like last summer's drought took out a bunch of reactors in a few northern European countries. It's not rhetorical labor to point out that it's simplistic to present nuclear as completely reliable (it's not) and that unreliable sources can contribute to a reliable grid. It's pointing out that the problem is more subtle. Unlike 10 years ago, we have now concrete examples of grids which operate with very high shares of wind and solar without any decrease in reliability and have developed practical techniques for incorporating such sources into grids.