My wife attended a Democratic Women’s meeting the other day, and among the material available was a print-out of a presentation that had previously been given describing the significant problems with smart meters being installed by the electric company. Primary among the purported concerns were exposure to RF transmissions. I skimmed the materials somewhat, but they also suggested potential exploitation by terrorists, a lack of proven economic savings, ecological costs related to the manufacture and replacement of the smart meters.
The tenor of the entire thing impressed me as “the sky is falling”/conspiracy theory type propaganda. I was surprised that I had not heard ANYTHING about this, if it was, in fact, a big deal. I looked a bit on-line, and my suspicions seem to be correct. But I wondered if any of you had any knowledge/experience re: this technology and these sorts of claims.
On edit, the last thread on this was 3-4 years ago, and seemed pretty solid in the “tinfoil hat” conclusions.
Those that have been all over the place for more than 15 years? The one negative experience I had with them had to do with my apartment building not having them installed, due to which we were all getting “estimated billing” and by the time I yelled “ow, my wallet!” had been for three years. That was in 2002. I’m still wondering if I was the only neighbor who looked at her bill or the only one who didn’t use an amount equivalent to a family.
Non-ionizing radiation can cause injury, but not at the levels of exposure that these smart meters would be producing. Privacy concerns would be a more reasonable argument, as the information produced has been used to draw conclusions about a household - by police looking for marijuana growers, for example.
Criminal types would be against this sort of thing. It could detect pot grow sites. So of course they want to get everyone else on the “ban it” bandwagon, with their fear mongering.
Now first of all, these systems CAN ALSO transmit data via the electric lines. No RF is involved with that type of meter.
Secondly, if they are so concerned about RF, WHY are they not also trying to ban cell phones and wireless computer (WiFi) in homes? (Not to mention ALL sorts of other RF wireless devices like car keys.)
And note that there are other ways to detect pot grow sites. Heat from the building can be detected by aircraft. Also simply an unusually large electric bill is a clue. No need for time of day monitoring.
Anyway if you are not a criminal, then no problem with automated meters.
The RF thing is just the tired, old, ridiculous ‘cellphones give you brain cancer’ nonsense. I don’t know what angle ‘exploitation by terrorists’ they could possibly be referring to. And as far as ecological costs related to their manufacture & replacement, huh?! How are smart electric meters any different than any other piece of electronic tech of which the modern world is absolutely flooded with?!
To me it just reeks of tinfoil-hat, ‘the govt is monitoring your electric use’, Big Brother paranoia. To which I always respond with, “Yeah, next thing you know the banks are gonna know how much money you have*!*” :rolleyes:
we’ve been exposed to “RF transmissions” for the better part of a century. We’re practically bathed in them. Do you have a cell phone? WiFi? You’ve got your own RF transmitters. There are hundreds of radio and TV stations broadcasting constantly. Smart meters broadcast in the same frequency ranges as TV and WiFi.
Look, most of the RF transmissions we generate are from 500 kHz (AM radio) up through about 300 GHz (but I don’t know how much of that spectrum is actually used.) electromagnetic radiation doesn’t become ionizing (harmful) until you get to ultraviolet in the Petahertz range.
the only way radio frequencies (which are all non-ionizing) can harm you is if you’re standing close enough to a transmitter which is emitting enough power to physically heat your tissues. Which is how microwave ovens cook food, they generate a thousand watts or so of radio waves, but concentrate it into a tiny metal box.
A smart meter should make it easier to distinguish marijuana growers from other high electricity users. Grow lights are generally on a timer, and run at constant power when on. Most other high-power appliances cycle on/off (air conditioners, freezers, water heater, oven, etc), or have less repeatable patterns (cooking range, electric car charger, etc).
Thanks all. This is a good description, because it seemed the report tossed out multiple “concerns” and kept shifting between them.
Yeah, it pretty much binged my BS detectors, but it is surprising how persuasive a professionally done power point presentation can be, with citations to technical terms I don’t understand, and citations to important-sounding reports/studies! :rolleyes: Especially if - like my wife and me - we really have little knowledge about so many aspects of technology and electronics. They kept shifting back and forth between RF, radiation, and other “scary sounding” terms. I got the impression that they were suggesting either that these RF transmissions were of some especially dangerous frequency or strength, or that the combined effect of all of them increased the danger.
And, to be completely honest, I really have no REAL idea of the various frequencies my various devices use. Hell - some aspect of electronics impresses this social scientist as little removed from “magic”! :o On a side note, my wife and I both have grad degrees, we are both quite skeptical, and I don’t consider us especially gullible. That we even considered the possibility of this being credible impresses me with respect to the effect it might have on less educated and less critical people.
This was the first meeting of this group my wife attended. I got the impression these materials were simply on a table with a bunch of other material. I’m surprised and disappointed that the group would not have been more aggressive in excluding such nonsense.
That’s because Saskatchewan makes everything bigger. The wheats are bigger, the potashes are bigger, and the kilowatts are bigger. Obviously this was caused by the linear accelerator, not by the smart meters.
“radiation” is just a scary word to a lot of people. I think many associate it with nuclear and aren’t aware there is both non-ionizing and ionizing radiation.
These were installed in British Columbia recently and in the years leading up to their installation, every nut job and wacko made sure his hysterical concerns were heard.
Now they’re installed and the nut jobs and wackos have been silenced. No doubt by those black op helicopters.
Here in Québec, there’s been much opposition to them, mostly fueled by tabloids. But it’s pretty clear (to me, at least) that the original seed of panic came from… the union representing the 726 meter readers, which launched an advertising campaign about smart meters around 2011.