(Bloom Box) An Open Letter to John Doerr Regarding Bloom Energy

[kristopher]

John Doerr is a "Silicon Valley moneyman" who opined in an oped that the Bloom publicity barrage was "like the Google IPO". The author of this piece, a veteran of the energy industry deeply involved in the market effects of energy policy decision-making.

Dear John,

I want to congratulate you and all your colleagues at Bloom Energy. Both for putting on a great show over the last several days, but more importantly for having the fortitude necessary to make it to this point. I am sure that you and KR are acutely aware that you are standing on the shoulders of many good technologists from the past.

...First, the technology is not really all that disruptive. As a matter of fact, when Clayton Christensen published his first book (1997), he spoke at a local angel investors group in Palo Alto. He mentioned that someone told him "fuel cells were a new, disruptive technology for the energy business." He looked a little sheepish when I told him that fuel cells had been around forever.

...a 650-kilowatt Caterpillar genset fueled with natural gas and backed up by a 500-kilowatt diesel genset and all the necessary electric panels costs under $1 million. Home Depot had four similar systems operating from 2004 to 2006 around New York City. Gas prices were about $6.50/Mcf (Mcf = 1000 cubic feet) at the meter and the cost of generation was about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. Home Depot didn't purchase any power from ConEd and saved $30,000 per year (about 10 percent) for each of the stores.

...Yes, it replaces the need for big power plants. But it uses natural gas. Let me say that again. It uses natural gas.

Lots more at: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/an-open-letter-to-john-doerr-re-bloom-energy

The bottom line: "So the Bloom Servers really don't provide such a big disruption in the business of distributed power, and maybe not all that much of a technology disruption."

[iamtechus]

1. Dear Richard (Hilt)

Why do you seem to feel threatened by the Bloom system? If it is, as you suggest, no big deal and nothing new, surely that will be obvious to many others, including those clever people who run Google and Walmart.

I think thou dost protest too much.

[kristopher]

2. He's addressing the hype, and his points are valid.

bullshit fads undermine the serious effort underway to move us away from a carbon based energy system. When we spend money on suboptimal strategies it is money not spent on the most effective technologies. Also, when people finally realize things like this are 95% hype they become are just a little closer to the point of believing it is ALL hype, even the things that DO work.

Think about how many parts there are to the system that feeds us our energy; think of how extremely complex it is. And then consider that we are going from that network of complexity to a radically new design for that network. The effort to understand these developments hinges on knowing both ends sufficient to see the path from one to the next.

At this point it is very difficult for the lay public to differentiate between what fits into that complex environment effectively and what doesn't. Every want-to-be has good and valid reasons they are in the competition and it always feels good to find something that is more substantial that a car that runs on water or a 100MPG carb.

The fuel cells of all sorts are real and compared to the traditional way we get our electricity they are cool as hell. But cool doesn't change the game when you are talking about a system as vast as our energy system is, and where competition between technologies ALWAYS rates overall economics as the highest priority.

The author of this piece understands the picture that this product is attempting to fit into and his credentials give no reason to think he has some wort of agenda against the adoption of this or any other fuel cell. That claim on your part simply lacks credibility.