Peet’s Versus Starbucks On The Tiburon Peninsula

Foe almost 20 years on a daily basis I have bought a Venti Soy No Foam Latte from the Starbucks at Strawberry Village.  My wife drinks this as her source of protein as well as caffeine for the day.  The drink was great for 19 years and 8 months and has become terrible for only the past 4 months.  I asked the folks at Starbucks if they had changed their supplier of Soy Milk?  No they have not.  Did they change their coffee?  No they have not. 

I do know that some rookie Baristas have a hard time with Soy as it has a propensity to foam and gets burned if the temperature is too hot.  I had the barista check the temperature of the steamed soy milk to see if that had changed?  No it had not.  I simply was bewildered until I realized the espresso machines at the Strawberry Starbucks’ store are very old and are approaching ten years since the store was remodeled. 

I then found out the machines are hundreds of thousands of shots overdue for replacement.  My source is a Starbucks worker. I then found out the machines significantly dilute the soy milk during the steaming process due to water condensing.  To test if the espresso machines at Strawberry Village are the fault, I started buying the daily Venti No Foam Soy Latte at the Starbucks store on East Blithedale.  The drink returned to its former glory of being tasty and not watered down.  I therefore had found the reason why for 4 months I had bought over 120 horrible tasting drinks and spent well over $500 for the trick of Starbucks selling me water milk not 100% soy milk.

As I am a Starbucks gold card holder since 2008, I called the customer service number.  I spoke with a supervisor about a week ago.  I was promised that within 3 days the region manager would call me.  Of course I have not received a call and of course Starbucks hopes I just go away.  As part of my experiment in the pursuit of good tasting coffee, I started taste testing the 20 ounce soy no foam latte at Peet’s in the Cove.  It is a wonderful drink.  I also found out that Peet’s gives customers three shots of expresso in this size drink not the two shots in the Starbucks’ Venti.  Pete’s also uses straight up soy milk not vanilla impregnated soy milk.

I have to say Peet’s beats Starbucks by a mile for this particular drink in this size.   The only Starbucks store that I now occasionally buy the Venti no foam soy latte at is the one on Blythedale.  Also by saving the two extra miles each way I have a lower carbon footprint by frequenting Peet’s.  I have probably bought 7,000 Venti no foam soy lattes at Starbucks,and If I last another 20 years I may match this number at Peet’s.  The way I feel about Starbucks is they shorted me by 7,000 shots and sold me watered down soy.  I am pretty miffed about Starbucks and may soon have to go after them with the same vigor that I have gone after Bloom Energy.  Let's see if the region manager calls me.

Kaiser Bloom and Greenwashing

An Email to the VP for Sustainability for Kaiser

Ms. Gerwig

I know that Kaiser has tried to be green.  Sadly you have been hoodwinked by Bloom Energy and the 4.3 megawatts of power generation at 7 Kaiser sites are anything but green, they are GANGRENE.

NBC copied did report on Greenwashing by Bloom Energy and Ms. Gerwig on behalf of Kaiser chose to defend Bloom in the first of four reports by NBC.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Is-Bloom-Energy-Greenwashing-the-Public-279813752.html

I now have conclusive evidence that Bloom Boxes generate hazardous solid waste that is hauled to an EPA licensed hazmat site in Texas.  Kaiser is therefore a generators of many tons of undocumented hazardous waste from their Bloom Boxes.

I have copied the CPUC as Kaiser benefitted from many dollars of SGIP funds from the Bloom Boxes.  Also copied is my Congressman as there was a lot of federal incentive for these Dirty Boxes.

Attached is a letter from the head of the US EPA Philadelphia office to the Delaware Cabinet Secretary for the environment stating EPA position that the waste is hazardous and should be handled accordingly.

Below is my Blog on the waste and Bloom's Twinkie Defense.  

http://www.greenexplored.com/2016/03/bloom-energys-twinkie-bagel-defense.html

Also attached is a recent article I wrote.

Ms. Gerwig please contact me as I am now writing a piece on how Kaiser is a part of the Bloomdoggle.

Thanks 

Lindsay Leveen The Green Machine

Green Is Good

Often I spend my time exposing Gangrene folks who Greenwash.  That is the job of the Thermonator but on Greenexplored dot com I will now mainly focus on Green that is Good.  The LED blog is an example of how green tech that is really green can make a real difference. 

So what else is really green and making a difference.  My friend Ronni in Australia who started and runs Oz Harvest is really doing a bang up job making sure food does not end up in a garbage dump.

http://www.ozharvest.org/

Ronni and her organization have made sure that 45 million meals end up in people’s mouths and not in some garbage dump.  Six years back when Ronni started Oz Harvest she was one of the few in the world to do this on an industrial scale.  She and I went to high school together many years ago and we linked again on Facebook.  Every year or so I help the team at Oz Harvest calculate their negative carbon footprint.

Yes they prevent methane forming from food decomposing in garbage dumps.  As methane is more of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide that we breathe out after digesting food, using food for meals instead of waste means a negative carbon footprint in the enterprise of donating food that otherwise would have been wasted.  The negative carbon footprint holds even after netting out emissions for food refrigeration, reheating, and delivery.

Oz Harvest is a world leader in their field and many other organizations in many other countries are now following Oz Harvest’s lead.

Here is an article on the BBC from a couple days ago that reveals interesting global statistics on food waste.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35988093

Who said Australians simply were beach bums?  When it comes to preventing food waste the Ozzies are world class.  Ronni even got to meet royalty when Camila and Charles popped in for tea and scones.

http://www.hortidaily.com/article/22201/British-Royal-family-pays-visit-to-OzHarvest-HQ

I do hope to visit Australia one day soon and also pay a visit to Oz Harvest and see my old high school chum Ronni.

Tesla Model 3

There was lots of Hoopla and Excitement this week about the reveal of the Tesla Model 3.  The Green Machine’s opinion is that this is one wonderfully engineered car.   No doubt that this car sets the standard for what can be done with a vehicle powered by lithium ion batteries. 

Tesla revealed that over 190,000 people had made their $1,000 reservation for the car at an average price of $42,000 each.  Sadly for many of these folks they won’t be getting the $7,500 tax credit unless the Feds change the law.  The law as presently written is that only the first 200,000 electric vehicles of any one manufacturer qualify for the $7,500 credit.  I am sure that Elon must have his lobbyists working on changing the law.

The car has an EPA range of approximately 200 miles.  The frame and body of the Model 3 are made of steel not aluminum like the Model S.  This was done to lower cost but adds to the mass of the car.  My guess is the car will weigh around 4,500 pounds and will have 55 to 60 kilowatt hours of batteries.  These specifications have not been revealed.

In 2013 Dr. Chu who was Secretary of Energy wrote a paper that the cost of lithium ion battery packs including all controls and thermal management was approximately $650 per kwh.  Folks are claiming the Model S battery pack will cost Tesla only $100 per kwh when the car starts selling in late 2017.  My educated guess is that the cost of the battery pack at the end of 2017 will still be $350 to $400 per kwh and that each pack will cost around $20,000 to $24,000.  This leaves approximately $18,000 to $22,000 for the rest of the vehicle.

You all may ask why I do not believe the $100 per kwh is possible?  This is because the cost of raw materials for the batteries will experience price increases.  Cobalt, lithium, graphite, copper, etc. will see inflation.  What will be very likely is that he Model 3 will be the last car that folks ever buy.  The batteries might well last 5,000 cycles for a lifetime of a million miles.  I actually think this is the real selling point of the car.  A car that lasts a lifetime!

The styling of the car is superb and Tesla has established their brand as the highest quality most sought out vehicle.  No other brand of vehicles comes close to Tesla for customer appeal and satisfaction.  I still think that the Toyota Prius should outsell the Model 3.  Time will tell how successful the Model 3 becomes and how much profit Tesla makes.   I have to hand it to the team at Tesla they sure know how to create excitement.

NBC Further Exposes Bloom Energy Bloomdoggle

This link is the fourth in a series by NBC Bay Area Investigates that exposes the Greenwashing by Bloom Energy

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/State-Regulators-Consider-Decision-to-End-Big-Benefits-for-Fuel-Cells-374152691.html

New data I have obtained from Delaware show for the 9 months June 2015 through February 2016 CO2 emissions from the Bloom Coffins are 896.12 pounds per megawatt-hour.  Bloom permitted only 773 pounds per mwh.  In these 9 months Bloom emitted an extra 10,419 tons of CO2 over and above than they claimed they would.  This is like Al Gore driving 3,000 cars 15,000 miles a year.  I only wish Al would go 45 million miles away and that would get him halfway to the Sun that he created when he was not busy inventing the internet.  Albert Gore is no Albert Camus he is more like Albert Tochus.

The Bloom is Wilting.

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.