[rsj_hn]

Comparing the price of unreliable energy with the price of reliable energy is like comparing the yield of a bond without taking default risk into account. It's just terrible.

Similarly thinking you can combine a bunch of unreliable energy sources and "tranche" them in order to get a smaller stream of reliable energy is very much like the gaussian copula problem that got us into the financial crisis. Yes, it's possible to do it in theory, but very hard to do so in practice due to the financial incentives involved and lack of knowledge about risk.

The level of discourse in our energy markets really needs to be improved, and quickly, otherwise we are going to make a lot of foolish choices.