Saturday, July 20, 2013

National Newspaper Association (NNA) Award

Happy to announce that the National Newspaper Association awarded the Tiburon Ark and It’s Green Machine (Me) the first place for Serious Writing for non-daily small newspapers for the original piece I wrote about a year ago that exposed the greenwashing of the Bloom Energy Box in Delaware.

Here is the link to the announcement and the actual announcement.

First Place, Best Serious Column, Non‐daily Division, circ. less than 3,000. Entry Title: The Bloom Box boondoggle. Credit(s): Lindsay Leveen. Judges' Comments: "The writer performed thorough research and succinctly explained complex, highly technical concepts with clarity. The topic has potentially substantial impact on readers.

As you all know I have taken that story a lot further and now we have my former California Assemblyman (Jared Huffman), AT&T, and myriad other big companies exposed for their greenwashing in California by deploying or promoting these dirty, polluting, and expensive Bloom Boxes.

The other big news for the week is that Bloom and Softbank of Japan have formed a partnership to market and install Bloom Boxes in Japan.  This actually may have some ecological merit as post Fukashima the grid emissions in Japan are very high due to the combustion of coal, heavy oil, and LNG for electric power generation.  Grid emissions in Japan are approximately 1,438 pounds per megawatt hour.

The Bloom Box emits 884 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour so they should go lock, stock and barrel of LNG to Japan to save global CO2emissions.  Note PG&E my utility claims their emissions in California are only 393 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour which are only 44.4% of those of the Bloom is Off The Rose Box.  Here is an idea for John Doerr, Al Gore, and Colin Powell please move to Japan and leave us alone in California.  I will gladly say Sayonara to the three of you and also please take Mr. Huffman with you.    I did send the Congressman’s staff the email of me and the Ark Newspaper receiving the award.  Who knows there still may be a Pulitzer Prize for this story that goes all the way to Joe Biden.

The excellent news is that the free press is still alive in small town newspapers that have the guts to take on big stories that involve big people.  It is disgraceful  that the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times who I approached simply ignored the truth to keep the favorite folks on the left squeaky green.  This story deserves national attention and a major suit has to be brought by the FTC against Bloom and its customers for greenwashing on a massive scale. 

These are the words of Mr. Donald S. Clark the Secretary of the FTC
“Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits the use of “unfair and deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce”.  The FTC Guides For The Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, 16 C.F.R Part 260 (the Green Guides) are designed to help marketers ensure that they make truthful and non-deceptive claims about their products’ environmental attributes.  In particular the Green Guides make it clear that “greenwashing” – that is, making false and unsubstantiated environmental benefit claims - may constitute an unfair act or practice, in violation of the FTC act.”

Mr. Clark if ever a company and its customers have made false and unsubstantiated environmental benefit claims it has to be Bloom Energy and companies like AT&T and Life Technologies.   We should all look forward to the day when Bloom, its officers, and directors as well as its major customers and their officers, and directors are held accountable for lying to us that they reduced carbon emissions by as much as 50% compared with the California grid.    Not even in post Fukashima Japan is this true.  The dirty Bloom Boxes only reduce carbon emissions by 38.5% in the land of the rising sun.  The sun will soon set on the wilting Bloom in the once Golden State. 

As for you Mr. Huffman the freshman congressman, now that I won a NNA First Prize for a Serious Column, I suggest we meet and I teach you Thermodynamics 101.  Better still invite a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle and myself to meet with you so we can flush out your connections to AT&T and your motivations for introducing your failed assembly bill AB 864 that the California Public Utilities Commission found fault with.  Mr. Huffman you would not lift a finger in assisting me with getting the FTC involved in this investigation, but now they are involved.  Only intervention from the “greenwashed” White House can preclude the FTC from bringing charges against Bloom Energy, AT&T, and several other major corporations for making false and unsubstantiated environmental benefit claims.    

Mr. Huffman, you see a chemical engineer with 40 years of experience and a lot of resolve can take on the mighty like Colin Powell, John Doerr,  Al Gore, Kleiner Perkins, and AT&T.  It would have been easier if you my Congressman actually was my representative but you simply are not.  Thank God we still have a free press when Mr. Obama’s new slogan based on all the scandals he is facing is “yes we scan”.  My slogan is still “yes we can and we will get the laws of thermodynamics to be obeyed.”