Sir_Osis_of_Liver

I have one. I’m 178cms and I can’t get my heels down, but I get the balls of both feel down with no issue. It’s not top heavy like the Tenere or Africa Twin, so it’s not too intimidating.

Congratulations. I bought a leftover V85 Adventure in the spring. First Guzzi after a KTM and a long string of Japanese bikes.

I just love the thing. So far absolutely faultless to boot.

Vogtle ended up at roughly $13,000/kW. On shore wind globally is averaging roughly $1,300/kW. Grid-scale batteries are running roughly $3,000/kW, then add in for how much ride-through you expect to need.

Depending on local conditions, you can build out 10x as much wind capacity as you need, or various combinations of wind + solar+ batteries and still end up less expensive and with a faster deployment time than nuclear.

Lol, no. Électricité de France is being re-nationalized by the French government due to their terrible financials. Areva/Framatome needed cash injections to avoid creditor protection. Westinghouse did have to file for creditor protection and almost took down parent company Toshiba, but they were sold off at a loss to a private equity firm.

Nuclear only looks good on an operational basis. Once you add in construction and refurbishment/decommissioning costs, it looks far worse.

His figures are ridiculously optimistic for nuclear, $6000/kW and 6 year construction times.
Flamanville-3 and Olkiluoto-3 were both 12 years over their 5 year construction schedules. They were supposed to cost €3.3B and €3B respectively for 1650MW. Flamanville is expected to end up somewhere over €20B (€12000/kW), and Olkiluoto is somewhere around €11B, only due to ‘not to exceed’ limits in the supply contracts.

Hinkley Point C has gone from £16B to near enough £30B for 3200MW (£9400/kW)

It was the same with Vogtle 3 & 4. The preliminary budget of $12B, was changed initially to $14B at the start of construction. It’s now somewhere around $30B and 7 years late. The two AP1000s have a combined output of 2200MW ($13000/kW).
V.C.Summer 2 & 3 was a similar pair of AP1000s. Costs went from $9B to $23B when the project was cancelled mid-construction.

Wind and solar are far faster to deploy, and typically on or near budget. The new, much cheaper redox flow batteries (100 MW/400 MWh for $266M Dalian, China) are capable of smoothing intermittency in areas without hydro, which can perform a similar function.

Edit. I should add that as of 2021, the global average for onshore wind is roughly $1300/kW. Prices continue to fall as new designs are introduced.

Just like assuming a perfectly spherical cow, or a frictionless surface, you can completely ignore the economics, the massive cost and schedule overages to make nuclear work.

Flamanville-3 in France started construction in 2007, was supposed to be operational in 2012 with a project budget of €3.3B. Construction is still ongoing, the in-service date is now sometime in 2024, and the budget has ballooned to €20B.

Olkiluoto-3 is a similar EPR. Construction started in 2005, was supposed to be in-service in 2010, but finally came online late last year. Costs bloated from €3 to €11B.

Hinkley Point C project is two EPRs. Construction started in 2017, it’s already running behind schedule, and the project costs have increased from £16B to somewhere approaching £30B. Start up has been pushed back to 2028 the last I’ve heard.

It’s no different in the US, where the V.C. Summer (2 x AP1000) reactor project was cancelled while under construction after projections put the completed project at somewhere around $23B, up from an estimate of $9B.

A similar set of AP1000s was built at Vogtle in Georgia. Unit 3 only recently came online, with unit 4 expected at the end of the year. Costs went from an initial estimate of $12B to somewhere over $30B.

Note that design, site selection, regulatory approvals, and tendering aren’t included in the above. Those add between 5-10 years to the above schedules.

Something Ryan didn’t mention was pumping losses, which increase at an increasing rate with engine rpm, so efficiency suffers.

Different engine designs have different sweet spots. My V85 is perfectly happy at 3000rpm around town, but it only revs to 8000 or so. My FZ6 wouldn’t really be happy at anything under about 5000rpm, but redlined at 14.5k.

You just have to get used to the engine you have and have some mechanical sympathy: don’t lug it, but you don’t need to rev the tits off it either.

I start my V85, zip up my jacket, slap on my helmet and gloves and by that time, it’s ready to go. Same routine I’ve been using for 30 some years.

Mold release agent hasn’t been a thing in decades. It’s a myth, however not the whole story.

The problem with this myth is that tires don’t stick to the molds in the first place. Mike Manning, Director of Marketing for Dunlop says, “We don’t spray the molds with anything. The tires come out of the mold just fine on their own.” Kevin Hunley, who is the Senior Manager of Motorcycle and Kart products of Bridgestone Americas, echoed that, saying, “There is no need for any type of mold release.”

But something must be causing all those new-tire crashes, right? In fact, there is a reason so many riders biff it on fresh rubber, but it has little to do with the rubber itself.

A new tire needs to be broken in gently, but not because you need to scuff off any slippery stuff on the tread surface. “The reason they need to be broken in is due to a chemical product,” said Manning. “All the different chemicals in it cure in the mold, but once they go on the bike the first few heat cycles finish that curing process.”

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/3-motorcycle-myths-that-wont-die/

I had something similar happen decades ago with my kick-start DR650. It had DOT knobbies on, but the mud was similar to that in the picture.

I was riding solo, eventually gave up on getting it out and walked 10km back to the nearest house. Called a buddy, and we eventually got it out in the wee hours of the morning. Lesson learned.

I’ve got a V85 Adventure now, but it doesn’t see anything more challenging than a grid road.

Yeah, the “difficult” part, I don’t understand. I’m 56 and figured out /kbin and Mastodon and how federation works within a few hours. So far, so good.

I was around for the early days of Fark, Digg, Twitter and Reddit. New sites are rough around the edges. That’s just the way it is. Things will get sorted in due time.

“Regulatory sabotage” is the latest talking point put out by the nuclear lobby. It’s a fabrication. Regulations were built based on incidents and accidents in the past. Building nukes on the cheap would be like building deep-sea submersibles without certifications. It’ll work fine, until it doesn’t.

Certification and licensing only make-up a tiny percentage of a plant’s upfront costs. Typically it’ll be dumped in with engineering/design costs and those would be down around 15% of capital costs, depending a lot on the project.

The French government has traditionally been very pro-nuclear, and the industry has broad support from the population aside from the Green movement. They have had extensive incentive programs for the industry, both domestic and for export. And yet, they have had no better luck in building plants on time and budgets. Flamanville-3 is the poster child for overbudget nuclear projects. Construction started in 2007, was supposed to be on-line in 2012, but is currently projected to be completed in 2024. The budget went from €3.3B to an estimated €20B as of a 2019 French court audit.

The “oil industry” doesn’t care about nuclear at all. Oil fired generators haven’t been a thing since the oil shocks of the 1970s. The few that are still around are typically used as backup or peakers, as they’re ridiculously expensive to run.

The coal industry would be so inclined, but in the US, coal plants have dropped from ~65% of generation to less than 20% of generation over the last 30 years. New plants are almost as expensive to build as nuclear, and as the plants get to end of life, they’re being decommissioned rather than refurbished. The writing is on the wall.

Of the fossil fuel industries, only natural gas is competitive, and the plants are far, far cheaper to build than about anything else. They are the preferred type of new generation for utilities that have access to gas. Only regulation or government mandates really slow down new gas plants.

Losses are a lot lower with DC transmission, but it has been traditionally more expensive. Costs are coming down now as more research and better power electronics are becoming available.

Edit. Here’s a pretty well know one in the US, the Pacific Intertie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie

Right now Sweden has adequate baseload, they are well positioned to go with more renewable.

UHVDC and HVDC links can be used to transmit power over thousands of kms. I think the longest line currently is in China a 1100kVDC line that stretches over 3300kms.

Even with conventional AC transmission, power generated in Churchill and James Bay eventually ends up in population centres in Southern Canada and New England.

Or, now hear me out, people actually know the history of the most recent projects and are reacting based on information.

Olkiluoto-3 was supposed to cost €3B, and ended up being approximately €11B.
Flamanville-3 was supposed to cost €3.3B and will likely end up costing in excess of €20B.
Hinkley Point C was supposed to cost £16B, but will likely end up about £27B.

It’s the same in the US:
V.C. Summer 2&3 was supposed to be $9B, but was cancelled while under construction, once total costs were projected to hit $23B.
Vogtle 3&4 was supposed to be $12B, but is currently in the $30B range.

These projects ended up being up to 12 years behind schedule. And that was in a low interest rate era. With higher interest rates, these kinds of schedule overruns will be devastating.

As it was, Framatom (Areva) and Électricité de France needed government bailouts and EdF is being re-nationalized by the French government due to the sad shape of its finances. Westinghouse ended up in creditor protection due to the fallout from the V.C. Summer project, and was sold off by parent company Toshiba.

The “move fast and break stuff” techbro ethic might not work so well with pressure vessels.