> Everybody has known all along that renewables generation is intermittent

That doesn't mean it's made clear in statistics. I've read plenty of people say "X generates as much as Y", where X is intermittent and Y is suitable for base load. Certainly enough to disagree that everyone knows it and is able to discern that from context-free statistics.

Literally every single person on Earth who even knows what renewables are knows they are intermittent. No one imagines solar panels produce peak power all the time, or any power at night.

You've missed my point again. Every time someone says "renewables supply 80% of power required" or similar, without stating the context of what that means, it creates false impressions in people's minds. Is it 80% on the sunniest day ever? 80% of actual load but using storage? 80% of the load 5% of the time?

I'm not saying if people think it through they won't understand it, I'm saying that context-free stats like that create false impressions in some people's minds based on whatever the assume about the stat, and annoy people like me who'd like to know where the stat came from.