Seeking sustainability since 2006… the journey continues. Please join us.
Eric Elfner 
In late December 2025, my natural gas HVAC system gave up with a cracked heat exchanger. The replacement of this unit had been on my radar for years in my transition away from fossil fuels and was the final puzzle piece in my journey to a net-zero energy home. Previous work included replacing my gas … Read more
Note: Updated to new design! See at bottom of this page. I put solar panels on my house today… at least in a design mockup. This is an email I was writing to my family and friends and then realized I had wasted spent so much time on it, perhaps I should make a blog … Read more
In the Fall of 2023, I drove my 2019 Tesla Model 3 from Cincinnati, OH to Tallahassee, FL with an average efficiency of 208 Wh/mi which is 4.8 miles/ kWh. This is pretty outstanding if you ask me. I did limit the heater usage and often drafted behind trucks at a safe “Chill FSD” distance. … Read more
My Rheem Performance Platinum water heater broke, so I ran a test! What happened with my Hybrid Water Heater? About a year ago, I installed a hybrid water heater, replacing an old natural gas unit. This is part of my ongoing efforts to reduce my fossil fuel consumption. A little over a month ago, the … Read more
Ouch! This is pretty dramatic. I know that there can be a lot of temperature variance over the years, but the bad news just keeps on coming. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/ We are so fried! Full paper: https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1675/2023/ Plot NOAA data here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/1/6/1850-2023
Today, I can across some references to a recently published paper in Nature entitled, “Safe and just Earth system boundaries.” The paper seems in line with why I created this website, so I decided to check out the primary source. After hours of trying to distill it, I’m left frustrated. My take on this article … Read more
Tesla’s Investor Day was yesterday, Wednesday 2023-03-01. As with all the special event days (AI Day, Battery Day, AI Day 2), yesterday’s Investor Day just cannot be appreciated by most people. Tesla is just looking further into the future than almost everyone understands. This morning, I quickly looked at Rob Mauer’s 28-minute “Super Cut” of … Read more
Last night, while I was sleeping, Tori updated and gave me FSD-Beta, the Full Self-Driving feature that allows my Tesla to drive itself on city streets as well as the highways under my full supervision. This morning, it drove me to work. I disengaged it one time because there were fire trucks off in the distance … Read more
It was well over a year ago that I wrote about being worried about Tesla FSD. I have not updated that article, because it continues to ring very true. Some people like to keep saying the same thing over and over again, but not me. But, I do think I see a new twist to … Read more
I certainly struggled with the title of this article. It all began as a discussion around Telsa’s “RoboTaxis” and “Solving FSD.” Both of these concepts I find to be vague to the point of ridiculousness, but they are becoming so commonly used, AND IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! To have a foundation for that discussion, … Read more