A Geek Goes Flying

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 ...

Discussion I had with a friend recently... California gas prices have hit $7/gallon in some places , even as high as almost $8 at at least one station . Growing up in the 90s, gas in the midwest was generally under $1.00/gallon, often as low as $.79/gallon. Pretty much the only way I was able to stay flush delivering Chinese food, when a $5 tip was memorable. But I digress. Even in SoCal, gas dipped below $1.00/gallon as recently as as 1998 , only to surge to around $2.00/gallon by spr surge to around $2.00/gallon by spring of 2000 . Outside of like a global pandemic, they’ve never gone back down, really, though they’ve occasionally shot up much higher. June 2008 or so, adjusted for inflation , gas prices were in the $6-7 range in California . But why? I find this interesting; how little things have changed, despite multiple governors (including – ostensibly – a Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, from 2003–2011): California Attorney General Bill Lockyear investigated accusations of pri...