Bloom Energy’s Twinkie (Bagel) Defense

I asked the US EPA to investigate the Bloom Energy Bloomdoggle in Delaware and the rest of the country regarding the hazardous waste they send for treatment to an EPA licensed facility in Texas.

I now have a letter from the head of the EPA in the Philadelphia region to the cabinet secretary of the environment (DNREC)  in the state government of Delaware.  The letter exposes the following:

Bloom and DNREC claimed the tightly sealed strong metallic containers holding the hazardous waste were simply part of the manufacturing processing unit (MPU) and even when they were disconnected, placed in a truck, transported thousands of miles, and delivered to the Hazmat site in Texas these containers still functioned as part of the Bloom Coffins (MPUs) placed in the protected coastal zone of Delaware.

Bloom hired one of the most expensive seasoned lawyers in the country to come up with the Twinkie in a sealed canister defense (a BS defense).  She is Michele B. Coresh of Morrison Foerster.  Her link is below.  This 70 year old super lawyer lives in a $7 million penthouse in San Francisco on Green Street no less.

http://www.mofo.com/people/c/corash-michele-b

The B in her name is for Beigel so we will call the Twinkie defense the Bagel defense.  The spelling of bagels is also beigels .  This all comes from Polish where Bagels were first invented.  Forget that the bagel is in the shape of a zero and that the defense amounted to one big zero let’s see what the EPA told the head of DNREC.

In polite language on September 8, 2015

“EPA has determined that Bloom Energy’s Desulf Units do not fall in the MPU exemption and your June 3, 2015 conclusion is based upon an interpretation that is less stringent than the federal program and inconsistent with how the exemption has been implemented nationally.”

“EPA has determined once the Bloom Energy Desulf Units are disconnected from the facility’s fuel cell module, the MPU is no longer applicable and the spent filter material within each disconnected Deslph Unit is a solid waste that is subject to DRGHW Sec 262.11.”

“EPA looks forward to discussing the issue with you and your staff in order to identify steps that Bloom is in compliance with the hazardous waste regulations and the waste is properly managed.”

In plain language EPA did not buy the Bagel Twinkie defense that Bloom’s very high priced lawyer Ms. Michele Beigel Corash used.  The EPA took the Big O out of Corash and what you have is a CRASH when her defense Bloomeranged and bit Bloomdoogle in the Behind.

A Danish Bloomdoggle

The Danes are being ripped off just like Americans by a HUGE greenwashed project

https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/air-liquide-is-leading-the-largest-power-to-hydrogen-project-in-europe/

Electricity generated from wind will be used to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen that will be used in vehicles and also used for grid backup.  One megawatt of electrolysis for $16 million, CRAZY!   The Danes could have stored the wind generated electricity in lithium ion batteries in a project that cost one tenth as much and the round trip efficiency of the battery project would be 90% or greater while the Rube Greenberg hydrogen project has a round trip efficiency of approximately 25%.  That is to say 75% of the energy is lost in the Leaky Air project while only 10% of the energy would be lost in the battery storage project.

In Denmark surnames end in SEN

http://www.mydanishroots.com/surnames-meaning-and-origin/the-100-most-common-surnames-in-denmark.html

I guess Rube Greenberg would be known as Rube Greenbergsen for this greenwashed project.

Headlamps and MPGs

Headlamps and MPGs

While driving on the Golden Gate Bridge this week, I remarked to my wife that all cars now have unique Headlamps and that this only came about 30 years ago.  Before that headlamps were either round or square and mounted flush with the grills of the vehicles at 90 degrees to the road.  The old round and square headlamps caused air flow to be interrupted and increased the coefficient of drag of the vehicle.

The photo below of a 1980 Honda Accord shows this

  

By 1985 Honda was hiding the headlamps in a retractable housing

Then came the molded plastic headlamps in 1990 and the beginning of more aerodynamic fronts to vehicles

 Now that we have reached 2016  the fronts are far more aerodynamic and streamlined

Folks back in the 1930s also produced streamlined vehilces.  The Tatra pictured below is one such vehicle.  Read up on it in the wiki link as well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_77

The poor Tatra tried to make the most out of the old round Headlamps.  Interestingly the Tatra had a coefficient of drag of 0.24.  The Hummer H2 which is like moving a brick through air has a coefficient of drag of 0.57.  The amount of power needed to break through air at the same speed is directly proportional to the coefficient of drag.  If 24 BHP were needed to break through the air for the Tatra at speed X then 57 BHP would be needed for the Hummer to break through the air at speed X.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient

The Tatra of eighty years ago had the same coefficient of drag as the Tesla Model S.

If Tatra had the opportunity to use headlights from 2016 rather than what was available eighty years ago the Tatra not the Tesla would be the talk of the town and Hand Ledwinka not Elon Musk would be on every Greenies’ lips.  Interesting the first three letters in Ledwinka are LED and we are now moving rapidly to adopting LED headlamps for vehicles.

By my estimate the 800 million vehicles on the roads of planet earth that have molded headlamps save 25 gallons each a year compared to if they had the old fashioned flat round or square headlamps.  Each gallon of gasoline emits approximately 25 pounds of CO2 (well to wheels).  Therefore molded headlamps save 500 billion pounds of CO2 emissions per year or 250 million short tons a year of CO2 emissions.  This is approximately equal to the amount of CO2 that 1.4 billion humans breathe out.  I love the style of the new headlamps and there should be a headlamp exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

Bloom Waste in Delaware

Calculation to get the 1,185.6 tons of waste per year sent from the pristine protected coastal zone of Delaware to the EPA licensed hazmat site in Texas