It appears we’re heading into one of those gloomy weeks that can happen even in the desert, in the winter. I’m putting the wasteful “Big solar panel array, itty bitty battery bank” approach to a proper test. And it seems, not for the first time, that you can fully charge batteries even if the input voltage never rises to the charge controller cut-off level: Yesterday there was a brief thin spot in the overcast, nothing like bright sun, but the indicated voltage rose promptly to 14.3, which is maximum, which suggests to me that the batteries’ internal resistance is low enough to be all but fully charged.
This morning it rained in the wee hours, there’s really depressingly thick overcast as the sky lightens, and there’s fog so thick I can barely see the cliffs of the wash. Fog – now, that’s not supposed to happen in the desert. Sigh.
Not very cold, though. High thirties, just clammy. I lit the fire anyway just to get the chill off the Lair. Because I can. I’m sure once Inconvenient Al’s new movie comes out* and he’s acclaimed Earth Savior for Life, releasing the carbon in Earth’s Sacred Relics will be grounds for some horrible punishment. Like burning, maybe. But in a natural way. Converted to fuel for Al’s jet, for example.
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*Did you hear about that? Seriously, another one. Maybe this one will explain why none of the dire predictions in the first one came true. As I recall we’re all supposed to be dead or dying by now.
So Al Gore has a “new” movie trumpeting the same old BS coming out. Well there’s one flick I will not waste my time on. On the plus side learning this has cemented my decision on a BBQ replacement. I was going to simply fix the propane one I have as long as possible but now I’m going to pick up a charcoal grill after Christmas when they are on sale. Why? Because I know that every time I use it, the smoke that comes off the burning coals will make Al Gore cry. :^)