Adventures on the Journey
The latest news on PNW berries: June 13th, at approximately 1,000 elevation, early salmonberries were ripe. Not yet plentiful. Hardscrabble Horse Camp is melted out but there was still snow around Williams Lake. June 18-20th, between 1-2k elevation, abundant and fully ripe salmonberries. Occasional thimbleberries. No berries above 2 yet. We chased off a black Continue reading "PNW Berry Report"
When configuring energy storage (battery) with the eGauge, there s a few things to know: Then you ll get a nice graph that looks something like this: Background: My solar installer included an eGuage 3010 energy meter when they installed my first array in 2016. It was a solid piece of kit but it got quite slow Continue reading "eGauge config with solar + storage"
When W invaded Iraq in 2003, I realized that as long as I was buying gasoline for my car and natural gas for my stove and furnace, I was part of the problem. I started looking for the exit. The following decades saw petroleum prices riding a roller coaster while electricity prices were nice and Continue reading "I helped finance this war"
In the days leading up to hitting the trail on August 28th, I kept an eye on the wildfire reports and kept thinking how lucky we were that this years fire season hadn t yet affected the Pacific Crest Trail in WA. We didn t know that lightning had ignited the Wildcat Fire on August 25th. On Continue reading "WA PCT completion: delayed."
Adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is gaining serious momentum around the world. Multiple countries, including the United States, have already passed a passenger EV tipping point— when sales reach critical mass RMI In one year, the world extracts 40 percent more oil than the total weight of all the ore needed to electrify the Continue reading "EVs Are on the Road to Mass Adoption"
Because I ve been asked enough times about our June 7th ski trip and have it already composed: There’s [barely] continuous snow from the Paradise parking lot to camp Muir, but one needs to be careful to stay to climber s right of the main route, else you’ll be booting a half mile. We left the Paradise Continue reading "Ski report: Mt. Rainier, camp Muir"
Ivanpah, the largest Concentrated Solar Power plant in the USA has announced they are closing in early 2026. That followed PG E announcing they plan to terminate their Ivanpah PPA contracts. The reasoning is simple: the PPA price from Ivanpah is estimated at $0.135/kWh. The PPA price on building a new solar PV plant is about Continue reading "Ivanpah falls victim to Swanson s Law"
Empirical speed tests (Mbps): TLDR; The backbone of my home LAN has been 1 Gbps wired Ethernet for decades. The wired backbone is the fastest part of the network while the WAN and WiFi have typically been a fraction the LAN speed. Because the wired network is fastest, I run wires to each Access Point, Continue reading "WiFi 6 and WiFi 7 speed"
February 26th was the first day of 2025 that I produced more energy than I consumed. I typically start producing surpluses in late March, but an unseasonably warm (55°F) sunny day combined with the new panels moved the timeline forward. Update (March 23rd): despite every day of the past week being mostly overcast, I have Continue reading "Feb-26: earliest solar plus day"
Over the years I ve read enough citations that I ve accepted it on faith that solar panel performance degrades about 2% in the first year and then 1% every year thereafter. Today I had a chance to test that. Yesterday afternoon I hauled 6 new solar panels up onto my roof and wired them up. Today Continue reading "Empirical data meets theoretical"