California Wastes a Quarter Billion Dollars On Blooms

The once golden state is not buying flowers for the state capitol.  They are leaking money left, right and center on Bloom Boxes thanks to likes of Jared Huffman and his SGIP legislation.  The SGIP is the self generation incentive program that was meant to lower carbon emissions in the once golden state.  Originally intended to promote wind and solar it now includes fuel cells and includes Bloom fuel cells in a big way.

Yesterday I received data from the staff of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that administers the SGIP program.  Here are that data as of June 25, 2013.

Type of Fuel Cell	Projects	Kilowatts	Amount
All Electric Only Fuel Cells	209	103,657	$    349,867,856
All Bloom Fuel Cells	153	74,587	$    257,310,790
Bloom % of Total	73.2%	72.0%	73.5%

Wow Bloom has extracted over a quarter billion dollars under the SGIP program and has gotten for itself or its customers almost three quarters of the money for electric only fuel cells.  So what if the Bloom box emits 884 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour.  So what if it emits VOCs.  So what if it contains hazardous solid waste.  Per Jared Huffman this is green technology that is deserving of your money.  Yes you fund it if you are a customer of a utility in California as that is the way the program is funded.

Interestingly the CPUC also gave me data on the number of cancelled projects in the program.  These figures are excluded from the ones above.

Type of Fuel Cell	Projects	Kilowatts	Amount
Bloom Fuel Cell Cancelled	66	33,125	$    137,745,300

Looks like a significant number of Bloom projects were cancelled.  For the projects that are installed or going ahead a SGIP of $3,450 per kilowatt was given.  This covered approximately 35% of the cost of the system.  The federal government also gave a 30% investment tax credit for these fuel cells, meaning 65% of the cost of the fuel cell was paid for by We the US people.  If the cell does not emit more CO2 than the existing grid average one might argue we did this to lower CO2 emissions, but the Bloom fuel cell emits 30% higher CO2 emissions than the existing California grid so why on heavens earth did this program ever go forward.

Mr. Huffman as a State Assemblyman introduced Assembly Bill 864 and his largest individual contributor between May 2010 and May 2012 while an assemblyman introducing this legislation was AT&T.  He was given $6,900 of campaign contributions by AT&T.  AT&T is Bloom’s largest customer.  The SGIP for Bloom Boxes at AT&T sites in California probably exceeds $40 million.  Wow AT&T got a 579,710% return on their money given to Mr. Huffman.

In a previous blog I called Mr. Huffman a Thermodynamic Neophyte.  It is actually the Green Machine who is a Political Neophyte.  Mr. Huffman knew exactly what he was doing.  What he probably did not know was how gangrene the Bloom boxes really are, and now he, AT&T, and Bloom Energy have a developing scandal thanks to the Green Machine’s tenacious unpeeling of the rotten onion. 

Mr. Huffman continues to hide from me.  He continues to block my comments on his public Facebook page.  He continues to pretend to be the green Congressman and even caught the red eye back from the left coast to DC to attend Mr. Obama’s speech on the environment at Georgetown University yesterday. 

Mr. Huffman for a measly $6,900 from AT&T in return for some crummy state legislation introduced by you under AB 864 in California, we have paid big time in subsidizing your green friends at Bloom.   Perhaps Colin Powell who sits on the board at Bloom together with Mr. Doerr who hosted Mr. Obama for dinner with the late Steve Jobs will come to Mr. Huffman’s side when I do manage to engage him in debate on who is green and who is gangrene.  I would love to take on all three stooges even with my hands tied behind my back.  You see I have thermodynamics on my side.