swansont

There’s still conversion from mechanical to/from electrical for a flywheel that represents a loss. That’s the comparison for pump efficiency. The analogue of spin-down is the evaporation that was mentioned

I’m going by a memory from the story told before seeing it in college, ~45 years ago, at an annual “bad films” showing before Halloween

Isn’t that the one where he died during filming and they also used footage with an actor of much different height?

You went from Germany to Europe. That’s a different argument, but once again you have not actually supported this claim. I don’t know what SA is; you don’t explain it, but as I showed, they are not importing more oil because of the nuclear shutdowns, which was your claim. All the rest here is moving the goalposts. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, so basically Germany stopped importing oil from them when that happened. Which is a spurious argument, a non-sequitur. But you haven’t shown that they did. You referred to a poll of today’s attitude (which didn’t show what you claim) and things don’t happen instantly. What’s relevant is the attitude when it was in progress. “According to a 2015 survey produced by the Emnid, a polling institute for the German outlet BILD am Sonntag, 81 percent of Germans believe that it is the right decision to phase-out nuclear power, and only 16 percent think that it is wrong. This becomes even clearer when looking at those 14 to 29 years old—93 percent of this group support the transition.” https://fee.org/articles/why-is-germany-phasing-out-nuclear-power/ If the attitude truly has changed, more than ten years later, Germany is free to decide to build new plants.

I’ve got a space weather app that alerts me to flares and CMEs and whenever Kp hits a certain threshold. Seen a couple of aurorae because of the alerts.

Do phones have motion-activation capabilities? You might look for an app that takes pictures at regular intervals. Time-lapse with a large gap. Most phones nowadays have a feature that records several seconds of pictures with each shot, which improves odds of capturing something.

“Sunspot region 4366 produced the most powerful flare of 2026 on Monday, unleashing an X8.1 and associated coronal mass ejection (CME)—a massive explosion of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s outer atmosphere.“ https://gizmodo.com/this-earth-facing-sunspot-region-is-absolutely-popping-off-2000717888 Probably more to come, since 4366 just came into view a week ago

This wasn’t true last year when you claimed it and it’s still not. Germany’s oil imports are lower than when they started shutting down nuclear, and basically none of it is from Russia. So this is not only not a fact, it is a lie - a repetition of an untruth that was pointed out to you, yet you’ve repeated it https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/135990-anti-democratic-political-decisions-in-the-western-countries/#findComment-1290436 It’s also something whose connection to “less freedom” is unclear to me. Your survey quote lacks an actual link, but here it is https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/two-thirds-germans-against-shutting-down-last-nuclear-power-plants-point-survey “32 percent of those surveyed were in favour of the remaining reactors continuing to run for a limited period, and an additional 33 percent were in favour of an unlimited runtime extension. Only 26 percent fully support a complete phase-out nuclear power at this point in time” So it’s the timing that’s the issue. Only a third wanted an unlimited extension. The shutdown plan predates that; it was made under Schröder and the first shutdown occurred in 2003. Merkel initially delayed it until Fukushima caused a pivot and she accelerated the plan.

Thanks. So it’s a location issue, not a size of demand issue. i.e. any power plant situated where the solar is would face the same problem.

It might, but it’s paywalled so I don’t know what the explanation is. edit: But electrical generation in the EU has been falling slightly (through 2023, at least), so it seems that it’s not increased demand causing this, it’s location and other issues https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_production,_consumption_and_market_overview

The issue is that you write fiction too much of the time. Unsubstantiated claims deserve little weight in these discussions.

Increased use is largely untethered to the means of production, AFAICT - grid problems would affect any source in the same location. And solar/wind supplanting e.g. coal doesn’t increase load on the grid. In addition, rooftop solar reduces load on the grid.

It’s true that new EU solar has contracted slightly, but it still installed ~65GW of capacity each of the last 3 years. More of a flattening as compared to the US. ~400 GW of installed capacity at end of ‘25, while the US was at ~240GW at the end of ‘24, yet the US uses about twice as much. So the EU is pretty far ahead in this. https://www.solarpowereurope.org/press-releases/new-report-eu-hits-2025-solar-target-but-market-contraction-puts-2030-goal-at-risk

If you don’t have a point for discussion, the appropriate place would have been the “Today I learned” thread (or science news if it was news)

“By the end of the year, wind and solar energy combined are projected to account for about half of China’s total installed power capacity, while coal’s share falls to around one-third, according to the China Electricity Council.” Solar alone set to overtake next year. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/china-solar-power-capacity-coal-first-time-b2912940.html This, amid other reports of places where renewables are occasionally accounting for all generated electricity. (Makes the US position all the more painful, though the courts have reinstated some renewables projects)