By Roy L Hales
San Diego is on the leading edge of PEV adoption. According to a recent poll, it is America’s fifth greenest car city. The Center for Sustainable Energy wrote that 20% of the electric car purchases in California take place in San Diego. I was especially intrigued by PEV owners who have solar panels.
Cortes Island activist and biologist, Sabina Leader Mense, takes Wilderness Committee Vancouver Island campaigner, Torrance Coste, on a tour of the Basil Creek Watershed—a spectacular grove of unlogged, ancient forest, and the very first area on Island Timberland’s cut-block.
Continue reading Cortes Island Ancient Forest #1: The Basil Creek WatershedBy Roy L Hales
Much to the apparent chagrin of California’s three public utilities companies, residential solar is booming. According to the Vote Solar Initiative, 1,400 megawatts (MW) of PV installations are now operating on the homes or businesses of 134,000 Californians. In a recent study, they conclude that, the benefits to ratepayers in SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E territories will be around $92.2 million a year “by the time the state’s net metering program is fully subscribed at 5% of peak demand.” Two thirds of these installations are in low and median income neighbourhoods.
Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric have become increasingly critical of net metering which, according to a Vote Solar Initiative PRnewswire, “reduces their ability to justify the capital investment infrastructure projects that earn them a guaranteed profit.”
By Roy L Hales
The Tesla Model S drove into New York City at 2:20 am, Eastern Time, this morning. That was when Peter Soukup tweeted, “If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere and we made it! Electric Road Trip S successfully finished in NYC, final mileage 4887!” They came the long way: driving south from Portland to LA, across the Southern states to Georgia and then north along the Atlantic Coast to New York. Peter Soukup, Tina Thomas and Luba Roytburd have proven it is possible for an EV to drive across the United States and, in the process, set a World Record for road trips in an EV.
They started that final day in Ashland, North Carolina, about 600 miles South of New York. Not long after they left, Tina texted, “Shout out to James & Terry at Ashland #KOA for being the nicest staff w/ the best campground on our #Tesla tour!” Their other tweets read like a drum roll:
By Roy L Hales
According to recent tweets on their blog, Peter Soukup, Tina Thomas and Luba Roytburd slept in Athens, Georgia, last night. That’s point G on the map above. They have driven over 4,000 miles and should arrive in New York city on Sunday (or Monday, at the latest). Their trip shatters any misconceptions about taking road trips with an EV, at least in a Tesla Model S.
The first entry in their blog was made by Peter, who caught a 3 Am flight from Washington, DC, to Portland, Oregon, on Christmas eve. He picked up his Tesla Model S at the local dealership and met Tina up at the airport. They didn’t leave until the following day, had Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Corvallis, then drove on to Ashland on the California border.
