Bloom Leads San Jose Astray

No doubt Bloom Energy knows the way to San Jose.  They do not need Dionne Warwick to show them the way.  They were pleased to announce on their website on October 29, 2012 that they placed two boxes at the San Jose Pavilion where the Sharks play NHL hockey.

Bloom provided the Sharks spokesman the data in the press release that they will save 4.8 million pounds of CO2 emissions over a ten year period with the two boxes at the Pavilion.    I contacted the Sharks Spokesman (Jim Sparaco) by email and told him that if the PG&E data on the grid emissions only being 393 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour are correct and the data in the Bloom permit filing in Delaware are correct and if the boxes have an uptime of 95% then the Pavilion will in fact be adding 16.3 million more pounds of CO2 over the ten year period than the case where they continued to simply buy electricity off of the grid from PG&E.

The Sharks Spokesman replied to my email that he had contacted Bloom to ask about the discrepancy between the data Bloom provided him for his press release and the PG&E and Bloom Delaware data.  I am happy that the spokesman takes his job seriously and does not want to be the cause of greenwashing.

Today I sent an email to the spokesman as well as the Mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, and helped inform the Mayor of the possible greenwashing at the state-of-the-art arena.    You see the mayor was quoted in the press release as follows:  “Congratulations to HP Pavilion for being the first arena in the nation to implement Bloom Energy’s cutting-edge fuel cell technology.”  Yeah Mr. Mayor this cutting-edge technology may well be an illusion.

The City of San Jose owns the arena and they are therefore directly responsible for the emissions of CO2 and VOCs as well as the toxic and hazardous solid wastes that accumulate in the Bloom Boxes.  I am sure that the Mayor just like the spokesman was given misleading information by Bloom. 

We now have evidence that Bloom gave the operators of the San Jose Pavilion the data on their emissions.  Bloom can either respond to the spokesman and the mayor that PG&E is fibbing about the grid emissions and / or that Bloom provided Delaware with incorrect information in a permit application submitted under penalty of perjury.  Or they can tell the city of San Jose that the boxes will not save 4.8 million pounds of CO2 emissions over the 10 years. 

No matter what Bloom tells the Spokesman or the Mayor their data somewhere are not correct.  Won’t it be nice if they misled Delaware rather than San Jose?  That is a crime under penalty of perjury.  If they misled San Jose rather than Delaware that is a crime against me and my neighbors as we all pay money into the SGIP to lower carbon emissions.  We all breathe the crisp air in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Interestingly the population of Delaware (917,012) is similar to the population of the city of San Jose (982,765).  It looks like Bloom likes boondoggling in places with approximately one million people.  My congressman pretends to represent the 707,530 people living in the 2^nd Congressional district of California.  While Mr. Huffman is a champion boondoggler, Bloom has him beat by an extra 275,235 people in San Jose and 209,482 extra people in the First State.

Now the zinger!!! The  Secretary of the Delaware  Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) is Collin O’Mara.    Quoting from the DNREC web site “Prior to joining Governor Markell, Secretary O’Mara served as the Clean Tech Strategist for the City of San Jose, and was the primary architect of the city of San Jose’s Green Vision, built upon the belief that environmental sustainability and smart economic development are inextricably linked and entirely compatible. “

http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/Admin/Pages/DNRECSecretaryCollinO'Mara.aspx

Wow there is a link between the San Jose Boondoggle and The Delaware Boondoggle.  It is Mr. O’Mara!!!  Honestly the whole thing reads like a novel called “Carbon Dioxide Into The Wind”.  Our hero is Green not Rhett and the leading high maintenance person is O’Mara not O’Hara.  But the key line from this book is “frankly my dear Scollin, I do give a damn!”