German Space Center has constructed the world’s largest artificial Sun

Ha

I didn't live in Livermore, I lived in Berkeley, and though I had a long anticommute I had a better network of people there. I like Germany so far (arrived in November), but I'm more of a city person. I'm looking to move to Cologne, but the rent is too low (although locals say it's very high), the demand is through the roof, and the supply is small. People I've spoken to say a year to find something to your liking isn't out of the ordinary. So I feel isolated, but I'm trying to fix it. But a year out of a three-year postdoc is substantial.

FZJ and LLNL are both astounding places to do science. As a postdoc you don't notice it, but it's harder to do science at LLNL, since their core mission is security. Both places have excellent computational resources and friendly, brilliant people. You definitely notice the machine guns and the culture of security at LLNL, and it can make it difficult to have foreign visitors. It seemed to me that at LLNL / if you have DOE funding generally an inordinate amount of your time is spent justifying and fighting for your funding, whereas the German funding cycle seems to be a lot longer.

The German system of supporting universities by having laboratory scientists responsible for at least 1 course a year is very interesting and healthy, I think. It's also easier to coordinate than it might be in the states where universities aren't all state run. Some US labs have very close connections to universities and often have joint positions (LBL and SLAC spring to mind), but the connections are stronger and obligations greater in Germany, I think.

I don't know, actually. But their website http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10550 has a phone number +49 2203 601-0.

IIRC it was even software and the hardware (wiring etc).

syn·ec·do·che səˈnekdəkē/ (noun)

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”).

For experimentation purposes, the sun is terrible. It doesn't have a fixed, standard output that allows reproducible measurements, you can't dim it to measure effectiveness at various radiation levels etc.

As a power source, it's not that bad: It does need storage and the output level fluctuates, but almost all other power sources need storage as well (fossil fuels before conversion to electricity, which makes things easier, but still) and it does need management. It's certainly harder to handle than other sources, but that's exactly what's being explored right now, even with that setup. Solar power does come with a few upsides as well though: Installations are comparatively easily transportable and independent, don't require grid connection and once in place require steady supplies and doesn't produce and waste .

Solar construction is dominated by energy and finance companies, with large projects in places that don't have subsidies. Popular enthusiasm is barely relevant.