A Geek Goes Flying

June 11, 2026:  Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time . “Data released on Wednesday by the global energy thinktank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (Seia) and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.” I’d buy that for a dollar. Green energy collage Of course, other countries are ahead of us. Germany has, on occasion, supplied all of its electrical demand using renewables, at least as far back as May 17, 2016 (“If only for a brief while, the country was almost entirely powered by solar and wind–and the grid didn’t collapse”). Meanwhile, I’d still love to have something like the GoSun EV Solar Charger for truly off-grid capability. With everything I tote these days being ...

I don’t have time to do a deep dive on this, but this LA Times article struck me:  Gas prices are widening the wealth gap between wealthy and poor Americans  (May 7, 2026). Key take-away: “Lower-income Americans sharply reduced their gas consumption in the month following the Iran war, yet spiking prices still forced them to spend more at the pump, worsening the economy’s economic disparities...” This is likely especially true in California, as I ruminated on yesterday . But it doesn’t have to be that way. The price for electricity hasn’t really moved, even with everything going on. I mean, yeah, it’s trending upwards, nationally it’s gone up (for residential customers) about 38% in the last ~10 years , from $.1255 to $.1730 per kilowatt hour. But, e.g., for the Solterra, that’s a difference of about $3.09 to “fill up” from 10% SOC to 90% SOC. That is a far cry from the leap in gas prices we’ve seen just from the Iran conflict, which shot up ~50% in just two months², and ...

Pulled in at 56% SOC at 09:37. My 7%/hr guesstimate said recharging to 100% would take about 6.3 hours. The car predicted 5:50 to full. I got the notification from the Subaru app at 16:08 that the car was done charging; ~6.5 hours later. At 240V 24A (5.76 kW), 37.44 kWh transferred, the actual SOC increase approximately 31.9 kWh (44% of the 72.6 kWh battery pack), makes for about 85% efficiency, which is more or less spot on for what I’ve read I should see L2 charging. Everything seems to be working as expected. I seem to be stuck at 205 miles predicted range, though, which is more a function of my driving than anything else (I’ve had 222 miles range predicted as recently as October 14, 2025, at 11,998 miles on the odometer, so I don’t think battery degradation is at play here - especially since  Electric Vehicle Range Doesn’t Degrade Much Over Time Now (MotorTrend, Apr 27, 2026). (This Solterra has been in service about 1 year 9 months, and has logged 16,457 miles, comfortab...

I’m continuing to get solid numbers when it comes to recharging this thing. I’m still using the Tesla Gen 2 UMC on an L6-30 outlet (240V 30A; the adapter I got automatically throttles the Tesla charger to 24A, so it’s effectively a ~5.76 kW L2 charger). I guesstimate about 7% charge per hour for the 2024 Solterra (72.8 kWh battery, per the Monroney sticker). Plugging in today at 50%, the car reported 6 hours 30 minutes to 100% charge, ~7.7%/hr, for an actual charge rate of about 5.6 kW/hour, with ~3% lost to inefficiency - which seems low, but, eh, I’ll take it. That’s one data point. The other is that when I plugged in at 95% the other day (I had a busy weekend ahead), the car self-reported it would take 1 hour 20 minutes hours to top off. So in the mid-90% range, I can expect maybe, what, 3.8%/hr charge rate? A few days before that, I plugged in at 82%, and the guesstimate was 2 hours 50 minutes, so the rate had dropped to ~6.4%/hr. Before that, 47% SOC (53% to full) was expected to...

Over at the Santa Monica Municipal Airport , they have free municipal EV charging. It’s not particularly fast (I think it’s reported as being something like 4.2 kW, shared, but in practice I see 3.77 kW when charging alone, or 1.86 kW when split - which is basically L1 charging), but it’s free, and the system is kinda kick ass. Solterra connected to a Santa Monica supplied EV ARC solar charger It’s up to 4 hours free per day, with a $1.00/minute “overstay charge” if you go beyond that. It’s administered by ChargePoint. And the EV ARC (Autonomous Renewable Charger) hardware is courtesy Envision Solar , who claims to be using a “patented sun tracker” (presumably this patent ?). (Apparently Envision is now Beam Global .) A large sign reads: EV ARC™  A truly zero emissions solution  The EV ARC™ is the world’s only transportable, solar powered electric vehicle charging product. The system is completely grid independent. The patented EnvisionTrak™ sun tracking technology enables th...

I get how all of it works, but it still seems like a kind of magic... To arrive at a theme park (Disneyland in Anaheim), plug your EV in to a charging port, and, while in the park, be able to pull up real time charging stats. And knowing when I get back to the car, it’ll be fully recharged. (However slowly. The charging ports are 6.2 kW, shared, and in the morning of course everyone connected is charging. So it’s almost trickle-charging at like 3 kW. But I parked with 52% SOC and I’ll be here a while. It’s Disneyland, on May the 4th.) Solterra charging in the Mickey & Friends parking structure ChargePoint app charging stats “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” – William Gibson, maybe . May the 4th be with you.