By Joshua Hart
You can certainly blame your utility and state and federal regulatory agencies for those headaches—both real and figurative—since the smart meter went in. There’s no denying they deserve your criticism.
But at the root of this international deployment are some very powerful corporations designing and supplying the diabolical devices and/or their components. One of the biggest firms pushing the wireless smart grid to utilities and governments around the world is Silver Spring Networks, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This company is responsible for the powerful transmitters inside most Landis & Gyr and GE smart meters as well as the collector units on pole-tops—radio-frequency transmitters that are subjecting us in our homes to 100 – 150 times the cumulative, whole body radiation as from a cell phone. They are pushing for an IPO (initial public offering of stock) this year—they are “going public,” that is- offering stock to public investors. Unfortunately in this case it looks like the public is paying the price.
Thanks, Silver Spring Networks, for making all of our lives a little less bearable, and making the lives of some a living nightmare.
The atmosphere--our public commons--is being expropriated for private gain.
In some ways, we applaud Silver Spring. They are following the capitalist system script perfectly.This is a script where, for instance, war is seen as an excellent opportunity for steep profits at public expense, as the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated. This is a script where crisis pays dividends and climate catastrophe is just another business bonanza at tax-payer expense—not a chance for local communities to develop energy resilience and self-reliance, but a chance to bully, buy, or fool legislators and rate-payers into agreeing to bizarre climate “solutions,” such as wireless smart meters. Decisions about long-term public infrastructure fall by the wayside, and the common good doesn’t figure in the calculations; instead, corporate shareholder profit is king, and endless business expansion is queen.
The extra bonus prize goes to the corporation that can find a “customer” base who is forced into “buying” their products, and fined if they refuse it. There is nothing “free” about that “free-market” scenario. To get that kind of “captive” consumer base usually requires government collusion, because—so far, for now—we are all (reportedly, at least) citizens of a nation, not thralls of a corporatocracy.
The second benefit of getting on the government gravy train is that when things go wrong—as they have so royally done with smart meters—the costs of the damage caused by your product are externalized, that is to say that the public is left holding the bag. The government agencies that approved your “product” for installation in every house in the country have got your backside covered. No accountability required.
How many people will develop thyroid cancer or leukemia or simply lose time at work because they can’t sleep, ever since that man with the white truck installed that new meter outside their bedroom window? These are the very real human costs of the reckless deployment we are witnessing now—costs that companies like Silver Spring and PG&E are sticking to ordinary people—so they can boost their own profits.
A failed attempt to clean up on their own--Chevron must pay
Multi-national companies are experts at disguising damages, leaving a toxic mess in their wake, and running off with the loot—all under the cover of complicit and corrupt governments. Oil companies are a great example of this: for decades in Ecuador, Texaco (now owned by Chevron) dumped billions of gallons of oil byproducts into the rainforest, giving people cancer and fouling water wells. Then it pulled out, leaving huge ecological and social scars. After victims tried in vain to obtain justice in the U.S, the courts in Ecuador levied a massive fine—billions of dollars—on Chevron. Chevron has filed endless appeals and this has kept justice from being served—so far. The current message is: it pays to pollute for profit; it pays to leave human and environmental harm in your wake, if the bottom line is boosted.
(Needless to say) it’s time to change that message.
Similarly, every fossil fuel company (including PG&E and other utilities) would be forced to seriously reconsider their business practices if the real costs of using the Earth’s atmosphere as a dumping ground for their waste products (like CO2 and methane) were deducted from their obscene profits.
But most politicians from the mainstream parties reject this idea. They believe in using market mechanisms, like the absurd notion of trading in carbon ‘offsets’ to fix a problem like climate change that the market created in the first place. Real solutions are developed from evidence-based science and local community leadership, not fantasy beliefs about corporate capitalism’s capacity to solve all human problems.
Anytime a company is making such huge, over-the-top profits, it’s likely that people or other living things somewhere (or sometime in the future) are or will be paying a terrible price. While “clean tech” companies like Silver Spring rake in money because of policies set by their golf cronies on utilities commissions, and their executives fatten up on bonuses, people are sleeping in their cars to avoid the sickness resulting from exposure to these untested, non-UL-approved devices forced onto their homes.
Maybe it’s just us, but this doesn’t seem right. Where is an independent court system when you need it, like the Ecuadoran court who called Chevron to account? Sandra Day O’Connor once said, about the 2010 ruling striking down bans on unfettered corporate spending on elections:
Nevertheless, despite all the evidence of harm; despite all the documented health and safety risks and the tens of thousands of people suffering symptoms from these meters, Silver Spring hurdles toward its IPO—likely within the next couple of months—making its founders filthy rich and subjecting more of our human communities and neighborhoods to sickening and disorienting pulsed radiation.
John Doerr. The real inconvenient truth is that one techno disaster will not solve another
Venture capitalists John Doerr and Al Gore, and other investors in Silver Spring, are salivating at the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into their pockets and hoping that ghosts of their many evil deeds won’t haunt their cash bonanza. (Here’s an account of a cozy dinner Obama had with Doerr, touted as the “world’s most powerful man.”)
In many ways, what happens with Silver Spring will determine the fate of the smart grid as a whole. Either they will be beefed up with investor cash and ramp up operations despite growing grassroots opposition, or the whole thing will collapse like a house of cards, throwing into question the viability of a future saturated with carcinogenic radiation. That is perhaps one big reason why the industry is watching the smart-meter wars–specifically the Silver Spring IPO–like a hawk. It’s a litmus test for their over-hyped smart grid techno-fantasy.
The 'smart' grid concentrates utility and telecom power over the public
Tellingly, the line between the utility and telecommunications industries is getting fuzzier as companies like Silver Spring begin to develop smart metering systems that work with existing cellular networks, and have higher bit-rates. The faster the data, the higher the RF radiation to those in the vicinity of the transmitter. Will each house now be considered a “wireless telecommunications facility”–its owners and occupants only secondary to its sole purpose as a node on the smart grid mesh network? Sounds chillingly like “the Matrix” to us.
Why is Silver Spring not taking responsibility for the safety of their products? Since they are being installed on our homes, shouldn’t we be able to insist on a product recall, if they are not safe? Shouldn’t we be able to refuse them—and get a refund—if we prefer to stick with the standard, safe analog?
Why not ask them? Their address is:
555 Broadway Street Redwood City, CA 94063
(650) 298-4200
WOW !
Thank you admin for hitting the nail on the head.
Eventually, (if no one stands up to them) the Silver Springs Networks, Qualicomm, Verizon and AT&T will succeed.
This is the next phase of OUR battle against the wireless smart grid, we have already one the first round here in PG&E territory.
If enough of use choose to not opt into their grand smart grid scam, it will throw a monkey wrench into their plans.
All these corporatists talking about tin foil hats are quaking in their boots now, because if enough of us refuse their smart grid plans, their plans will surely fail, and their smart grid will be useless and worthless.
What we need to focus on is to refuse the wireless smart grid, and focus on promoting more micro power grids, upgrading the electric power grid and developing and expanding renewable energy sources (especially local generation and distribution) everywhere in the world. And also, demanding that all new additions to the load demands on the power grid be halted, until the utility corporations can figure out how to accommodate the current needs without cooking up more phony methods to justify adding more loads without taking care of the demands at the present time. The smart grid will not cut it at all. We need better thinkers and doers.
We already know that we cannot trust the people “whats in charge” of our future, we need a new batch of brains to come in and work it out. Ondalay Muchachos !!
So, what solutions are your proposing? Where I come from it is impolite to complain unless you are working toward a solution…
Rusty,
Read the above post for the many solutions that I recommend.
Most people know that the wireless smart grid is strictly for eliminating decent paying union meter reader jobs, nothing else.
The are replacing American workers with cheaply made in China AMI meters. The people in those factories in China work 300 hours a month for a salary of $80 per month, for GE, to automate meter reading.
That is what the wireless smart grid is all about, the smart grid uses energy to transmit billing data, does not save any energy, but uses more than with traditional analog meters.
It is the way of the future, replace people with automated wireless garbage, for cheap ! But nothing is for free, it takes electrical energy to replace human workers.
So really, this wireless smart grid is just another way for the utility corporations to sell more power, even if the utility claims that the customers are not being charged to power the meters, the radio smart grid, the data collectors, the land lines that connect to the revenue assurance server farms and the false advertising propaganda campaigns, it is the ratepayers who are footing the bill for everything.
And next, the utility corporations will come begging for more corporate welfare money to build more nuclear power plants to power the “wireless smart grid”.
Here we go again, Al Gore making the big bucks from another “green” business. Looks like his invention of the Internet and why his wife left him is at the core of the issue here. Lies seem to be stuck with this project also. I wonder if the “green” freaks are waking up yet, or maybe smoking to much “green” has them to confused. Worshipping the earth is the oldest religion known. Global warming is a lie that they have been spreading since the 70’s. Look at the National Geographic magazine and their predictions. Looks like they were wrong. These man made microwaves are only getting stronger not weaker. The smart grid is a scam. People don’t dare question the word “smart”, because they might look dumb doing it? Just look at the smart car. You feel smart until a full size vehicle hits you. I apologize if you drive one. I do stare at the smart car wondering if you think I’m looking at you because I think your smart or not.
Now the net has been thrown all around us and the lies are being told to the customers. The power company says they operate at a quarter watt but are capable of three. I can’t imagine if this technology was in the wrong hands and all the meters in your city were turned up to 3 watts pulsing at 14-18 times per second. If you are curious about the results look up Barrie Trower on the stayonthetruth site.
http://www.stayonthetruth.com/barrie-trower–lecture.php
You might want to include a link in this article to the report you had a while back on Oilybomber’s personal visit to the Bay Area home of one of Silver Springs’ CEOs, complete with motorcade fanfare and local news interviewing the neighbors.
This happened before Solyndra. The implications were obvious.
Everyone should critically read the paper by Daniel Hirsch. In it he uses non-linear reasoning to derive the absolutely ridiculous conclusion that a Smart Meter (with the well-known duty cycle of 0.1% (e.g., transmitting 1/1000th of the time) 3 feet from a person generates 50 times the exposure of a cell phone placed against a person’s head!
Silver Spring is in the vanguard of tech companies working to reduce pollution and increase efficiency whilst retaining worldwide living standards; reverting to collecting dung for cooking fuel is not an appealing option.
BTW: StopSmartMeters.org hypocritically skewers ‘fossil fuel companies’ while posting their information on the most energy-intensive media possible.
You can come up with any conclusion you want if you just make up stuff about your competition. Hitler did. Daniel Hirsch does. Do your homework folks…
When you get to experience the effects of the smart meter first hand and then see the symptoms disappear immediately after the piece of death is removed you won’t want to listen to anyones gobelygook about how they are harmless. Everyone that I have told to remove the meter is now a true believer and their health is back to normal. Who would think that a device pulsing microwave radiation throughout your home would actually make you sick? The World Health Organization, Department of Defense, NASA, and the Naval Medical Research Institute seem to think so.
http://www.magdahavas.com/category/from-zorys-archive/
Interesting vehemence; but that does not get us anywhere, does it?
One has to ask, Where is the science?
Annecdotal stories are not science. The highly competitive academic and health research communities have jumped to discover any reproducable deleterious effect – and failed. Is the effect psychosomatic? Is it uncommon? Are rabid self-described ‘sensitives’ willing to be subject to double-blind testing? Yes, maybe, and no.
BTW: if injurious pulsed non-ionizing RF health effects are common and real… or even uncommon and real… Smart Meters would NOT be where they would turn up. The number and ubiquity of RF sources in our daily lives would astound most folks; just look around.
Ok, I get it, you didn’t bother looking at the link to studies given. To say there is no evidence, when I have given a link to scanned documents from the federal government describing the negative effects, is silly. The surveys are being done as I write and the truth, like always will eventually come out. I know you won’t bother to investigate this information as it’s really not meant for you anyway.
http://www.justproveit.net/studies
It would be useful to note if you are picking a subset of all studies that supports your preconceptions. This is called perception bias and makes it very easy to convince yourself of false substantiation.
It is more useful to analyze studies using different approaches and with researchers having different agendas.
There are a lot of studies… I’ve read many but cannot say I’ve read all – not even most.
Good news though: It is easy to do double-blind testing and I suggest doing your own. It is easy; please post your results.
I started a survey and found that 28 out of 37 homes were affected by frequent headaches and waking up at the same time every night. It was interesting to find that a few of us woke at 3:12 a.m. while others didn’t pay attention or had poor memory.
I didn’t know what a smart meter was before they put one on my house. I was at home when they installed it and didn’t care what it was. I did start caring after waking up at 3 am every night for a month straight. The smart meter was within 3 feet of my pillow on the other side of the wall. I slept fine after leaving my home in the city and the symptoms only appeared when in a home with a smart meter. I no longer have one after 10 months of pleading with the power company. I spent that time researching to understand why I was feeling so horrible. I found that I suffered from “microwave sickness” or “radiowave sickness” and this was the result of the microwave pulses coming from the smart meter.
I am the lab experiment gone rogue. I don’t need a scientist to tell me how I feel. I do have plenty of scientist and government studies that are explaining why I felt like I did.
It’s really pretty simple. Smart meter is installed symptoms start, smart meter is removed symptoms vanish.
I would also like to include that I do have an analyzer and use it daily. You are right about high levels around us, except it is not present in our homes if we don’t own anything wireless. The smart meter, on the other hand, is the only thing most people can’t change. It sends it’s microwave pulses into your body when trying to repair itself 24/7. It sends high frequency over the wiring in your home interferring with our electricital fields, acting like a cage of death, unlike the low 60 Hz we have had for decades.
@Rusty, Rusty, Rusty, please, if you don’t it to be known that you work for Silver Spring Networks, for goodnessakes, post your comments when you get home instead!
I’ll tell you who makes stuff up, your company: Time averaging the radio-frequency microwave pulses off the OWS-NIC514 is the worst sort of fantasy pseudo-science. The instantaneous peak figure for this model can be extremely high. One of our techs caught a pulse that topped out at “10,000 times, for less than one second, the FCC limit.”
Solutions? Real solutions are thick on the ground, but don’t involve high profits for publicly held companies. E.g. I’m part of a three-person family that has cut electricity usage by 40% in the last two years, gasoline usage by 25%, but none of the things we did would employ you or the execs you work for for even a day. Local and community solutions to energy conservation and management don’t produce obscene profits.
I applaud your conservation effort and encourage you to spread your message to your fellow 311 million Americans. After all, they clearly haven’t heard the message and will happily sell their gas guzzling trucks and replace their inefficient refrigerators and clogged air filters happily once they hear your compelling argument.
@Mr Bubbley, I see you have returned from Silver Spring—with a new moniker. I hope your employer recognizes your persistence and rewards you well for it.
I do understand what you are saying. I can also see you feel convinced that you and your company are Doing Good in a world full of those lazy ignorant masses.
But by creating a product that has clearly harmed people, and continues to do so, and being apparently untroubled by this fact—indeed, persisting in believing the obverse—you invite an intelligent observer to wonder about your humanity.
Me again, please substantiate “clearly harmed people”. If true, they would have a legal claim, would they not? If not… well, you are making stuff up. Again.
Life is full of choices. More acid rain, perhaps? Electric cars or diesel? Or bikes and rickshaws? Cellphones or paper mail?
You still use gasoline? THAT is a well-known carcinogen. Electric cars hold some substantial promise there. Gotta meter them somehow…
If we collectively do not choose to dramatically – and I mean very, very dramatically – lower our standard of living then we will have to figure out how to make our world cleaner and more efficient using the technologies we are now.
Smart Meters play a tiny but important roll in the much bigger picture.
One last note, and I shouldn’t have to point this out, but profits are not obscene – lack of profits are – try making a living without.
Oh, and welcome to the mosh pit, Mr. Bubbley 🙂
I am not Rusty and I have no idea who Rusty is. Yes, as you can deduce from my IP address I am a Springer, but I not a PR person. I’m just a person trying to make a difference.
My humanity is alive and well, thank you very much, and is evident that I chose to move thousands of miles specifically to work for a company I view as progressively tackling some of the major problems of our modern society.
It is my sincere hope that as a species we get a handle on the major global climate change issues we face today. Like it or not, our homes and small businesses account for a major portion of American greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Gore states that efficiency is the way out of the problem. I don’t believe that to be entirely true; efficiency alone results in greater consumption by a now larger group of consumer who can afford it. Efficiency and governance together is the answer.
The people worried that smart grid RF is causing their health problems have a much greater problem if indeed they are EM sensitive. This is certainly a case of misrepresented blame. How did you test this “take away the smart meter” theory? Did you physically remove the meter and then reattach it in the morning? Did you cut power to the building (including the meter)? I know I sleep better during a power outage, because then my fridge, furnace, computers, and fish tank make no sound. More likely, the candidate slept somewhere else. It will be some other factor causing the sleep issues. 900 MHz band radio has been in common use in high powers since the 80s when people started using cordless telephones.
As for waking up at 3:19am every morning, maybe you should check for bed bugs. I used to wake up in the night, then I realized it was my faulty phone charger emitting a high pitched whine as it finished charging my cell phone. There are thousands of reasons why a person’s sleep can be disrupted, and you’ve a high bar of proof to pass to show it is the smart meters’ fault and not one of those other thousand reasons.
The “wake up” at 3:12 am was a rude and instant type of awakening. After a while it feels like you are hit with a ball pein hammer. It doesn’t matter if you go to sleep at midnight. I had noticed that bed bugs didn’t care for this type of “wake up” either as I had left my bed before they had a chance to get me. Really? Bedbugs? Dizziness, tinnitus, and headaches accompanied this 3am treat. My eyes were swollen all day and it seemed I could not take enough naps.
The meter is removed and I now feel excellent once again. I no longer have black circles and puffed up eyes. Naps are not even a thought like they were for the 10 months of my hate relationship with the smart meter.
I laud your energy efficiency efforts… and I would be happy to work at Silver Springs… are they hiring?
ahhh,yes ,rusty is about as obvious as they come.good catch
you realize,he’ll change his name now
So then can one surmise that contravention of multiple national, state and provincial laws does not pose any kind of ethical or even just any fiscal problem? Presumably not for grid groupie advocates in thrall to all things green washed and labelled “smart? Any con can be conned by a better con. And any corporation can be stopped by a bigger one with something to lose. That is why insurance corporations have “recovery” departments.
Read Andrew Michrowski. The not so smart grid gang may be delusional enough to operate inside its own compartmentalized smart grid bubble economy, it fans may think they can continue to operate in some parallel Enron model of a corporate universe where corporate scofflaws are the standard issue and recessions deepening into depressions don’t exist.
However, as the corporate parasite devours the host, back here in the real world inhabited by what are euphemistically referred to as “customers”, the universe in which flesh and blood lives is rapidly becoming uninhabitable.
What the hit-&-run short term thinking of the corporate mentality fails to grasp is that no economy can survive, let alone thrive, when short term greed erodes, impoverishes and disables the better part of an entire current and future customer base.
These frequencies give new meaning to the term “brain drain”. An EMF drained brain does not earn nor spend.
Just as no dope or pharmaceutical dealer can survive without drug junkies, likewise no energy corporation can sustain any goal without electricity users able to afford the use. What is the game plan when predatory capitalism is faced with slow motion economic collapse of the buyer sector? How do private medical corporations deal with the impact of a growing societal disease burden unable any longer to support these corporations? How to investors skirt the issue of structural destabilization as each metal component in everything from electrical systems to support beams to amalgam fillings bionic replacement parts begins to give out “prematurely” from harmonics induced deconstruction.
What is the game plan beyond the short term once frequency weapons of mass energy distribution reveal themselves to frequency weapons of mass destruction?
There really is no difference between demolition from EMPs and EMFs, except the rate of speed.
Ask the military. they don’t sit around “wondering” if ultra low frequencies are harmful, they KNOW they are, that is why they use them.
These low frequencies contravene building code LAWS on the books right now, laws re vibrations that have not been factored in, which loosen all contacts, electrical code laws re harmonics which it has long been known corrode metal, 20 years worth of corrosion in a matter of a few months.
Sure, a materialistic culture may place little value on damage to children’s developing brains or the disappearance of pollinators of our food supply.
But even corporate hacks who love hostile takeovers tend to sit up and pay attention fast when one giant corporation goes after another.
THAT is when predatory capitalism gets interesting.
Imagine the impact on investors and developers when engineers who are reminded of the laws concerning the illegality of harmonics refuse to approve structures. Maybe those engineers get taken to court but then case law precedent establishes that national building codes are indeed backing their decisions for refusal of occupancy permits for billion dollar investments. You think they will write a white paper opinion piece about that?
Visualize how all this will play out when the really big predators such as insurance corporations flat out refuse any kind of insurance for buildings which fail to meet laws or inspections, due to destabilized specs.
Consider that when firewall separations corrode, firemen are not going to be willing to facing the risk.
The phrase currently to explain away wireless frequency induced accelerated corrosion which is surfacing everywhere these days in the industry is “premature failure”.
How will these predators keep off shore accounts overflowing once unpredictable destabilization of buildings, bridges, hip implants becomes the new standard and ready prey is nowhere to be found?
Look at their emblem! It shows people being controlled by pulsed microwaves emittiing from the smart meter technology. It’s hard for me to believe that Al Gore and his top secret clearance did not know anything about pulsed microwaves being used as weapons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLWRdkxKXiw
Wow! You have just ranged further afield than most folks…
BTW: operationally there is absolutely nothing unique about 3:12am… or any other time….
Candidly: The placebo effect is strong in most people… and from your description you have symptoms a professional should look at – almost indisputably is it not RF… and possibly portending something serious. Even the most (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity) get enough sleep…
if your stupid enough to want one rusty,you go right ahead and get one.move into an apartment complex to get the full feel.boy,pay must be great at schills r us.they ought to do IQ and drug testing first.critical thinkers and humanitarians need not apply
Wikipedia? Wikpedia? since when is that a reliable, unbiased source? What a joke.
Symptoms start the day of installation and vanish the day it’s removed. Are you saying that after 10 months this is pure coincidence? I have solved the problem but yet I should go ask my doctor if my smart meter was the source? Most doctors have never heard of a smart meter. All the doctor could do is prescribe something to mask the symptoms. There is no common sense to your reply.
@Mr. Bubbles
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
-Upton Sinclair
However, since the tone of your comments indicates that you are a little more open to hearing about the truth about this topic than might be expected of someone working in “the industry,” I offer the following link:
http://emfwise.com/science.php
Remember that many of us who are made sick by wireless tech do our best to live as normal a life as possible not to make a big deal out of it; after all, we have no more wish than anyone else to seem threatening or nutty. I (a student in a respected civil engineering program) am one such person; my mother (a successful career lawyer working in state government) is another. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway (and, ironically, a former director-general of the world health organization) is another person who suffers from wireless ES. In fact, reasonable people all over the world are now getting sick from wireless exposure: as Blake Levitt puts it in a recent article, “It’s not likely a transcultural mass hallucination.”
Article: http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/warning_high_frequency/
I don’t question the humanity of people who work in the wireless industry; indeed, I think they display an especially human propensity for blocking out information they aren’t interested in hearing.
I read your link, and the results they find are acquired through an equivalent of 23 W of power, continuously for 7 hours a day. It would take *years* for that cumulative amount of power to emitted by a smart grid device. And the frequencies they studies are higher-powered frequencies than the smart grid devices emit.
I sit in front of a bank of these devices all day long, every day, and I can assure you there are no more sick people in the wireless engineering business than any other business. You certainly can’t say that of industries with demonstrably dangerous materials such as nuclear engineering.
I’m not saying you don’t have a case, but I am saying your case is overstated and the data is hugely speculative. You want to believe that EM is causing your illness, and you’ll find evidence to support that. I believe that EM is not, or not directly, causing your illness, and I’ve got a great deal of evidence on my side.
There is nothing special about 3:12am. The systems I’m familiar with couldn’t hit that time with that accuracy if they tried.
And frankly, there are easy solutions, no matter the source of your EM illness. If you indeed are affected by EM of all sources, perhaps you should find a place to live that has old-style metal-grid plaster in the walls, which effectively creates an EM shielding. Goodness knows there’s plenty of them around; you’ll know you are in such a room because your cell phone won’t have much of a signal.
Of course, you don’t use a cell phone do you, because cell phones emit a much (MUCH) higher amount of EM energy in the relevant frequencies. If you find using a cell phone bearable, then you have absolutely no case on the smart grid devices.
Speaking of studies, did you find the one that points to a cause for increased illness around high tension power lines being not the EM itself, but a tendency for the EM to pull ionized pollution closer to the power corridor, thereby increasing the exposure to toxic chemicals (like those emitted by vehicles) for those living nearby? The problem is not the EM, the problem is the pollution. And that doesn’t apply to smart grid, of course, I’m just demonstrating what kind of relationships can confuse the conclusions.
Also speaking of studies, I checked out that “DNA fragmentation” study, and they found that slight fragmentation occurred but only at powers much higher than already regulated limits. There isn’t even any conclusive evidence to suggest the cause is the EM or the heat produced by the EM. I’d link to actual studies, but of course you would say they were the result of an industry conspiracy. I would encourage you to put together your own study group, build up a citizens study, and make an actual case with good data. (Good data is not very easy.)
Hmmm so you don’t like the facts? 3:12 am is not a number I just made up.
Microwave pulses powered by a continuous 120 volt source 24/7 doesn’t compare to a battery operated cell phone used briefly during the day.
Goodness gracious. Now you’re really on a limb.
Fact: Just because your lamp is plugged in 24/7 doesn’t mean it is on 24/7.
Fact: Just because your DVD player/electric toothbrush/stereo system/laptop/etc is plugged in doesn’t mean it operates at 120V either.
The power source is not the determining factor in the amount of power a device puts out. It may limit the maximum power (of your vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, chandelier, clothes dryer, electric heater, power tools) but not how much the device actually consumes (like a stereo.)
Fact: Almost all digital electronics on the planet operates between 3.3V and 5V. It cannot operate at higher voltages because most semiconductors cannot operate at higher voltage. Higher voltage semiconductors are exceptionally rare and *exceptionally* expensive, and that is not what you will find in smart grid equipment. Standard electronics design has a power adapter component which steps down the incoming voltage to something manageable (like 5V) and that’s what you’ll find in smart grid equipment too.
The power output is what matters. That is measured in Watts. The radio on SSN gear is a 1 Watt radio. There are bicycle flashers that put out more power than that! With AA batteries even! You may hear about some fancy radio jargon of “effective 3 Watts” but that is just antenna design resulting in a better noise ratio, not actual power output. The maximum actual power output of SSN gear is 1 Watt on transmission, and almost always is less than that.
Besides, if the smart grid equipment really consumed that much power, it would offset the benefit of having it in the first place! The smart grid equipment is designed with a long-term goal of energy conservation. High powered transmitters would be impractical.
I don’t know what happens for you at 3:12am but I do know that conflating your case with uninformed assumptions will never help.
I feel sorry for you. How much are souls going for these days? And please, link to your “studies.” I’m sure they are easily shredded.
Not so easily debunked are the studies showing that radiofrequency radiation and electromagnetic interference can raise your risk of cancer up to 13 times more than normal. http://www.prevention.com/health/healthy-living/electromagnetic-fields-and-your-health
Also, did you know that having a smart meter on the side of your house is akin to having over FORTY cell phones strapped to your wall, going at full blast 24/7? http://www.committeetobridgethegap.org/pdf/110212_RFrad_comments.pdf
We have facts on our side. All you have is industry piffle. So, begone, before someone drops a house on you!
Isn’t it a little presumptious to assert that I want to believe that EM radiation (and specifically, modulated microwaves in the 2 GHz band) is causing my illness? God knows it’s the last thing I want to believe, because the repercussions for my ability to live a normal life are incredibly depressing. Unfortunately, whenever I’m in close proximity to wireless tech (specifically wi-fi, which seems to have the worst effect) I experience a fairly predictable sequence of events: it becomes progressively more difficult to think clearly, I become disoriented, and, if I don’t manage to relocate further from the offending transmitter, I get nauseous, dizzy, and develop a splitting headache. When something like that happens predictably enough, it becomes a bit hard to write it off, especially when you learn that thousands of other people all over the world have a similar experience when subjected to the same stimuli.
Oh, and of course I don’t own a cell or use any form of wireless tech; if you experienced the effects I just described when close to wireless devices, would you?
Take a bit of a harder look at the links provided; the whole point is that there have been literally hundreds of studies that have observed negative biological effects from non-thermal power densities of microwaves. There have also been a large number of studies that don’t observe such effects, but so what? At least until the last few years, plenty of people doing research on the health effects of tobacco couldn’t find any evidence to support a cancer link, because their research funding depended on their ongoing failure to find such a connection. It’s not a conspiracy so much as a survival strategy; just like anybody else, scientists can learn where their bread is buttered. The only other option for many scientists is to get out of the field: I’ve spoken with the guy who first discovered that microwaves shred DNA (Henry Lai), and after the effort that Motorola put in to destroying his career he very understandably decided he’d be better off researching topics that don’t threaten the foundations of a trillion-dollar industry (he’s currently doing cancer research unrelated to EM fields). This is how the game is played, at least in the States; you either play ball with the big boys or you get out. We can pretend otherwise, but that won’t stop people from getting sick.
Rusty refuses to put any stock in “anecdotal evidence.” But doctors everywhere use symptoms as an important means to determine illness. Some illnesses, such as peanut allergy, cannot be tested except by bad reaction to peanuts. The same with some other environmental illnesses. This includes multiple chemical sensitivity.
It is extremely arrogant to ignore what other people have observed about their own bodies and health. If your cigarette smoke makes me get a sore throat how dare you say my experience is worthless. But some years back even doctors would smoke, and tell a patient that is impossible.
Environmental illness is real. It is not mental or psychosomatic. To say so is just a ploy to discredit people and keep the truth – that pulsed radiofrequency radiation (and it is the PULSING, on and off, not just the levels, as shown in somatic reactions in a study) is biologically active and harmful.
I will say, however, that capitalism is not obscene unless the products are harmful. Profit is not evil unless it involves hurting people. Utilties are government-protected monopolies. That is not capitalism. If we had competing utilities we could simply choose one that would not use smart meters.
You are absolutely correct! Forcing a community to have something equally is not capitalism and is more like communism. If it were true capitalism we would want these meters so that we could watch our energy use all day long and think about unplugging our fridge to make some graph go down? Woops looks like their are just a handful of people who like that idea. So instead you get the EPA to give the power companies a swift kick to the balls by limiting their coal use. Then protection is offered if they push the smart meter on the public. Typical Chicago mob tactics!
3:12am could be a citywide broadcast? To say that nothing is going on at that time ,when so many complain about it, is just another lie. One thing is for certain and that is we have heard lie after lie about these dumb meters. It all makes sense to me when you see who the heads behind the rollout are.
(I meant keep the truth OBSCURED)
The wireless smart meters and the Silver Springs wireless smart grid were a very poor choice for any utility corporation, WHY ?
Because the Silver Springs smart grid does not work for the many people who are doing local generation using solar panels and back feeding the excess electricity back to the power grid.
Anyone with a power grid tied generation system cannot use any smart meters because they are not capable of measuring or allowing electricity generated by a customer to flow in reverse back to the power grid. Those customers who do want to send excess power generated back to the grid must use a traditional analog meter or a digital E6/E7 time of use meter. The analog meters actually spin in reverse, and the digital E6 meters have arrows on the display that indicate the direction of current flow, and record it. Those meters are not called smart meters and do not transmit to the smart grid, they must be read by a meter reader monthly.
The Silver Springs smart grid is a radio network that was very expensive to the consumers, but it is an outdated slow speed communications “radio grid” not capable or compatible with modern advancements in technology like home generated renewable energy systems or sophisticated E9 electric meters for electric vehicle charging and using vehicle batteries to store power from the grid. The Silver Springs smart grid does not work for two way flow of electricity, only one way to the customer, that it.
Now, why would a utility corporation invest billions of their ratepayers dollars on a metering system that is not compatible with present and planned for the future alternate energy systems ?.
On another PG&E related subject, San Bruno city officials are working with PG&E on setting up a compensation program for the pipeline explosion that killed 8 people and destroyed 38 houses. But on the news this morning, San Bruno city officials stated that they are very worried that PG&E will go bankrupt before compensating any victims.
PG&E going bankrupt ?, it wouldn’t be the first time !
Redi,
I’ve decided you are actually worth reading and not a troll. Your statement about the one-way nature of the smart grid network is incorrect though; it’s a result of the meters the radio equipment is attached to, not the network itself that is one-way.
SSN doesn’t make the meters, or even make the choice about what meters the technology goes in; that’s up to the utility.
Mr. Bubbles,
I never said that your radio network was one way, I know that it is in fact 2 way between the meter and the utility. It would have to be to send total usage of the meter once every 4 hours to the utility, and to be able to take commands from the utility to activate the motorized disconnect switch in the meter should a customer not pay their bill on time.
What I said was that your radio network or smart grid as you call it cannot support communications that allow for two way flow of electricity.
Those expensive E9 electric meters are designed to in the distant future be capable of utilizing the charge stored as DC in electric vehicles that are not being used for the day, and with inverters send it back to the electrical power grid for consumption. Those E9 meters will not work on your Silver Springs radio smart grid, they must use a direct high speed broadband connection, either BPL, G4 mobile or cable/fiber optics. The choice in the the industry has been announced to be BPL for communications between the chargers/inverters and the E9 meter, and then most likely broadband cable between the meter and the utility. You radio network is too slow and not sophisticated enough to support this advancing EV technology.
Your Silver Springs Network is a very expensive, limited, inefficient and wasteful system.
Although the meters are transmitting basically 24/7, they are only transmitting usage data one way less than 1 percent of the time. The rest of the time the meters (using your network built into them) are transmitting just to chat and keep in sync with each other.
So, you sold a radio system that consumes vast amounts of electrical energy just to basically chat with itself all day and night. That is not saving energy at all, and I don’t know how anyone could ever convince me otherwise.
Most people I have talked to can’t sleep for more than 4 hours after a smart meter has been installed. If what you are telling us is true….mystery solved, case closed.
SSN does offer something to bridge the smart grid network to an ethernet network. As you know, ethernet is a very convenient way to network, so I ‘d expect the EV meter to be able to interface with that, if it can do cable and fiber. I’m not so clear on why the network would have to be particularly high speed – for the purposes of EV charging with regards to the grid, 1 picosecond should be about equivalent to 1 second or even 15 seconds.
An ethernet connection needs to be connected to a modem, which is connected to a high speed broadband connection, not a Silver Springs radio smart grid.
I have not heard of any meters with SSN smart grid connected to high speed broadband, what are you trying to sell us now Mr. Bubbles ?
And yes, an E9 meter requires a high speed broadband connection, and your SSN smart grid is slow speed, so your network won’t work with E9 meters.
I think it is more about that your network is not capable of being interactive (two way) with anything except the meter, and the chargers are down line of the meter, and so are solar generating systems.
I know you want to believe that the smart grid is incapable of being anything other than a meter-to-meter-to-ap network, but it actually is far more general than that. And the ethernet bridge is a device we offer. Unfortunately the problem is not technical, it’s a policy/business problem; we offer the device, it’s just getting it in your hands so you can hook it up to your EV meter and making sure it can talk to what it needs to talk to in a secure and safe manner that is the problem.
I highly doubt that the EV *actually* needs a broadband connection; more likely, it just needs an always-on connection and the speed of the network doesn’t matter SO much. The SSN network is not high speed (no streaming videos, or even phone call level data, that is true) but it is always up (as you all have noted many times) and it is available (look no farther than your meter- there it is!) And on top of that, it even does TCP/UDP IPv4/IPv6. In terms of the actual networking of getting packets to and fro, the SSN smart grid is good. That’s what it’s built to do. The meters all have IPv6 addresses and the bridges have IPv6 (wireless) and IPv4 (wired/tunnel) addresses.
It isn’t like the EV is streaming videos. It probably has some kind of call-home that it does to the EV meter company, who in turn have some kind of signaling agreement with PGE.
The issue is more that the EV meter people and PGE have something worked out that is outside of the AMI PGE people. I don’t know what that is. Your objections that the SSN network can’t be the provider for that connection, though, it not right. It can. It just isn’t for whatever reasons that are non-technical.
How can your network devote a single data channel to an individual meter that is always on, when your network is designed to only transmit usage data once every 4 hours, and the rest of the time is devoted to transmitting just so the meters can keep in sync with and chat with each other to maintain the mesh network ?.
You know, the sad and stupid thing is that “they” could make a new electric meter that would be safe, that would benefit the environment, and that would help us all use electricity with more savvy. But, sadly, no; it was more important to get these pieces of junk made quickly and cheaply, and slap them on people’s houses before they could find out exactly how horrible “smart” meters are.
But, thanks to websites like this, and dedicated individuals who won’t rest until the world knows the truth, the word is getting out. And for every person who just says “NO!” to a “smart” meter, the greedy sociopaths that put these things on our houses have to make a new plan. And because “smart” are so over-the-top pathetically made and dangerous, Silver Spring and the like are not going to win this battle – we are. We have facts on our side, and, when coupled with having overwhelming numbers on our side also, that spells humiliating defeat for those who would lie, cheat, and steal our health and money, with no thought to our future or, strangely, theirs.
Keep up the good work, people! Our victories are mounting, the latest being the UK stopping installations in their tracks. I know that articles and posts from https://stopsmartmeters.org and other anti-“smeter” websites helped them to victory, and will continue to shine the light on our winding, but well-peopled path.
They know the microwave pulses are bad for us. Just study their logo. It looks as if Silver Spring Technology is surrounding people with these death waves until they pass away.
There are other customers of SSN’s that are realizing the power saving benefits of the smart grid technology, it’s just that PGE isn’t one of them. Why don’t you lobby PGE to smarten up? SSN built a great technology, and it’s getting used to take gas guzzling peaker plants offline at other utilities. SSN is the company that “did it right”. Perfect? Maybe not, but pretty damn close. Be careful in who you assault; you’ll be delivering a blow to a great group of people who are working hard on the solution.
Hey Mr. Bubbles,
Why is it that you and no one else ever mention the fact that your Silver Springs smart grid does not support solar or electric vehicle charging meters.
Let’s face it, your SSN “smart grid” was obsolete even before you dumped on the market, and with a forced sale to boot !
You should be happy that you worked so hard and made so much money off of a useless expensive radio system.
Your SSN is not needed now at all, and will be even more worthless in the future when technology will advance.
That’s right, technology advances, and your system just won’t be able to handle keep up.
Saionara Silver Springs, you have already gone the way of the dinosaur.
That’s not true, the platform is not static. There’s a lot of work going on especially in the EV space. We already have EV solutions on the market, and if you visit our HQ, you’ll see three employee-owned Leafs being charged out front. They get the best parking spots!
If you are talking about the E9 meters only for electric vehicle chargers, then your Silver Springs radio smart grid does not work for them.
The E9 meters need either a broadband over powerline carrier (BPL), a high speed broadband internet service (about $60 a month where available) or a G4 mobile service with data package (around $100 per month with a “throttled” data package)
And keep in mind that an E9 electric meter costs the customer $4000+ and can be only installed as a second meter by the utility, and cannot use your Silver Springs smart radio grid at all.
So you have a few PEV’s, and you have a $4000 meter for each one of them, you folks must be “rolling in dough”. But how much of that “dough” was from us taxpayers in the form of ARRA federal stimulus corporate welfare bailout money ?
So, please tell us about the work that you are doing in the “EV space”, and how your networks are supposedly saving energy in other areas that are not in PG&E territory.
If you can’t come up with anything, then we all know that you are a corporate propagandist.
Secret Bioweapons have always been the elites main game.
Mainstream Newsbulletin / parasitologist prooves mercury amalgams cause morgellons >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLpEnluld40&feature=youtu.be
2002 gov docket on mercury amalgams> http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/02/Mar02/031502/02N-0007-EC-1.html
2012 and the bioweapon soup thickens with chemtrails, wifi, haarp, GMO, designer retroviruses .)
Hominids are taking back the wormhole/death ! Now watch , evolution will accelerate >
http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-to-die-in-oregon-dvd
Well well well it seems like we smoked the silver spring snakes out of their hole. Touch a nerve did we?
A couple of brief responses:
1) Yes life is full of choices- it seems that the industry and government have made a (behind closed doors) choice to sacrifice health to allegedly reduce pollution- or is it just to make a profit? The problem is when arrogant individuals, companies, and governments think they can make life and death decisions for the public without consultation or a community discussion. We are seeing the results of those decisions unfold now.
2) The problem with assumptions like “smart meters save energy” is that there has been no independent analysis documenting that fact. PG&E’s own report to the CPUC says there has been no reduction in electrical demand- despite 80-90% deployment. And don’t post some biased EPRI report crap saying that we will spend billions but save trillions- where’s the independent analysis and the guarantee that the public won’t be left holding the bag when the so-called trillions don’t materialize?
3) We have established that smart meters emit significantly more cumulative radiation that other wireless household devices and that biological damage occurs at far lower levels. Anyone who has a shred of doubt about electro-sensitivity, or the body’s ability to be harmed by levels of EMF far below FCC limits need only read the research carried out on a 35 year old EHS physician at the University of Louisiana, published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Neuroscience- http://www.next-up.org/pdf/Electromagnetic_Hypersensitivity_Evidence_For_A_Novel_Neurological_Syndrome_McCarty_Marino_July_2011.pdf
4) Don’t worry Silver Spring- lawsuits are coming and you better slither for cover because people are pissed.
You pegged number 4.
I sure hope so. Then this idiocy can finally stop and people can focus on the real problems rather than just trying to blow up bridges.
Keep in mind you’ll be attacking the people who are spending every working day trying to solve climate change. More than I can say for this blubbering bunch. You people have no idea what it takes and how hard we’re working.
I could care less on your position of wether or not the sun is responsible for heating the earth. You can believe that your ancestors came from pond scum also. Now your telling us that you and the 46 other companies are only in it for our good? You’ve been reading to many National Geographic magazines.
http://m.zdnet.com/blog/green/should-smart-meters-be-mandated-federally-group-pushes-for-universal-access/11138
Here is a better link to the companies that “care” so much about us.
http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/A-letter-to-President-Obama.pdf
You’ll notice SSN isn’t on the list. I’m just a guy in the trenches, so I can’t, won’t, and don’t speak for SSN as a whole, but it seems to me we don’t need a federal mandate to push our product. The product speaks for itself and saves our customers plenty of money in distribution optimization and service management.
OGE is an example of a customer who has removed two gas-guzzling peaker plants already, thanks to our products, and they’re just getting started!
Lol working on what? Your own made up problem? It’s like you’re trying different approaches to change a flat tire but the problem is the tire is on a car that will never run. You sound like chicken little “the sky is falling!!!the sky is falling!!!!’ Global warming!!! Global warming!!! Woops, it’s not getting warmer, let’s just call
it climate change instead. Climate change!!! Climate change!!!!Hurry save the Polar Bears! Stop driving your suvssss.
Only a fool could think that they could change how hot or cool the sun gets.
Unfortunately it is guys like you that make people who might have actual problems seem illegitimate.
The smart meter was my “actual problem”. It’s guys like me that look out for soothsayers like Mr Bubbles who are looking out for our best interest. First they create an energy shortage by stopping the energy production. No pipeline, no permits, and place fines on coal plants. Remember Jimmy Carter? People that think the way they do could never run a coal mine or oil rig. They don’t have common sense. So they get their friends to create films, news, and tv programs to bash them only to take advantage of other energy sources that don’t work. Instead of letting the free market come up with a cheaper and better way to create energy they use political offices to mandate the “choice”.
We see a very good example of their trickery now with the smart meter. Unfortunately for them, the microwave pulses are bothering peoples sleep. Take a moment and listen to the health talk shows. Most of the people are complaining of “microwave sickness” symptoms. Is it all coincidental that these ailments started after the smart meter was installed?
Paul, the rush to stop global warming, or climate change, or the coming ice age (some say this is actually what is coming) – have created a frenzied rush to stop it by forcing products not well-researched or thought-out, including cfl light bulbs (can cause seizures, skin problems, and contain lethal mercury, toxic to people and waste dumps, where many still end up); smart meters (installed in order to monitor top-down our energy use and push people to use less and pay more); and electric cars. Yes, I said electric cars, which will cost electrical use energy, and create amazing amounts of dirty electricity, plus will be IMPOSSIBLE for people with electro-sensitivity to use or be near.
When creating products, start with safety. Build on that. You can’t do this if you are too rushed to think it through.
Speaking of other wireless household devices: One of the arguments I often hear from the power company is “Well, you have other radiofrequency radiation (RF) emitting devices in your home, don’t you?”
Since learning about the dangers of excessive RF exposure, we have gotten rid of:
1. Our microwave. We now have a small convection oven instead. No, we can no longer instantly heat our food. But the trade-off – not being irradiated day in and day out – is well worth it!
2. Cordless phones – gone. The convenience is definitely not worth it. And the darn things were always running out of power anyway. Now we save on buying expensive batteries, and save the planet!
3. Wireless modem. We still have the modem, but we have made it to where the wireless function is off. We’ll have to get a wire for the youngest daughter when she comes home from college, and string it through the attic back to her room, but it will be worth it for the whole family to be healthier!
We still have a couple of cell phones, but they are the old flip type, and we keep them at least three feet away from us when we’re not on them. I also try to use hands-free when possible, and count on the landline to keep us radiation-free whenever possible.
So, “getting off the wireless grid” is not only possible, to a large extent, but fairly easy! You just have to be willing to give up some small conveniences for the sake of your family’s health and welfare. The only hard part will be convincing them that it’s for their own good! Once it becomes common knowledge that cell phones are causing cancer cases left and right, and “smart” meters are at least forty times as bad, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Did you know that gasoline causes cancer? So does the sun. For your family’s health I hope you never fly in a airplane and don’t drive.
None of us here drive a car, talk on a cell phone, fly in a plane, or microwave food 24/7. The smart meter is the only forced microwave pulsing device that we have to deal with when we sleep. If we can’t sleep properly…..the body won’t repair itself properly. Make sense? Your pulsed microwaves are killing us slowly. Its called “microwave sickness” or “radiowave sickness” Kapish? Check out Dr George Carlo while your trying to understand what I’m commenting about.
Ah yes, the false equivalency argument, used when your position is beginning to deteriorate in the hope that you can pull a few back over to your side.
But you see, Bubbles, all of those other sources of cancer that you quote can be limited by choice, and choice just happens to be missing from your SmartMeter form of cancer.
BTW, thanks for admitting that your meters do cause cancer. I’m not sure if everyone caught your faux pas, but I did.
Thanks for pointing out the hidden benefit (using that term loosely) of smart meters: they’ve made a lot of people realize that RF is very rarely good for us. Of course, there are some medical uses for RF. Clearly, not everyone dislikes the feeling of their cells and nervous systems vibrating at 900 Mhz at random intervals, or have the capacity to believe or sympathize with the people who have been harmed.
The industry and agencies supposed to be protecting us have no excuse for being so uninformed, which is giving them a huge benefit of the doubt. Yet, they still to stick to the mantra that “SMs aren’t that bad compared to cell phones and microwave ovens.”
@Rusty: Yeah dude sweet. Welcome to the mosh pit “Mr. Bubbles.” Silver Spring in the house everyone. Let’s all get crazy. Elbow some old ladies in the ribs, maybe give some little kids a headache and a bloody nose. Why not kick some people out of their homes, take away the last few peaceful sleeps of some sweet little old couple. Give someone’s wife cancer.
Awesome.
But you gotta ‘make a living’ right? Guess what? They’re only obscene profits when you’re making way more money than you will ever need at the expense of other people’s health and wellbeing. Y’all can continue burying your head in the sand or accept that your product carries MAJOR risks and investors should be aware of future liability. Not only that but utilities and governments everywhere are looking at California and Maine and backing out of their “smart grid” plans.
Climate catastrophe and peak oil are bona fide looming threats- but cheap plastic meters that take away jobs, catch on fire, damage public health, invade privacy, overcharge people and burn a hell of a lot of carbon simply operating, not to mention storing all that data- are not the way forward.
Solyndra was just the start.
Look at Michigan, too. They’ve now got a BILL to end and pull out these smart meter weeds!
Silver Springs and other executives are using the IPOs to cash-out of a troubled company. They know that Smart Meter sales will drop like a rock as the federal Smart Grid stimulus (Recovery Act) funds dry up in 2013.
The USA’s Smart Meter market is saturated. All of the large utilities (like PG&E) have already made their commitments to buy their Smart Meters and networks.
A few years from now, as these smart meter problems are identified by the mainstream media, Silver Springs executives will have cashed-out. They’ll be counting the cash they bilked from the US Department of Energy and investors.
Remember Lou Pai of Enron? He’s a role model for these guys. Before all the scandals hit, Lou cashed-out and left Enron with $250,000,000 cash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Pai
I live in Minnesota where the Smart meters are just beginning. We now have “smart” water meters in Saint Paul. Most all of the population does not even know that there is a controversy or that there are any dangers associated with the meters–though we have managed to pass an opt-out (alternative meter program). For those who do not believe that there is any science to this, I ask you to go to http://www.powerwatch.org.uk, and read all of the article abstracts located in their “list of studies” that are marked with a “P”–this shows that there was a biological effect. See also their information on funding bias. I do not believe that anyone could read all of the abstracts on their site and still think that there is not enough evidence to show harm. I, too, am someone who used to use a cell phone, (but remember feeling uncomfortable when it got hot), used to have cordless phones, used to use a microwave oven, and never thought about possible effects. Then one day I got ill from it all, and it took me about a year to figure out what it was from. Now I live in a shielded house, and one of my daughters sleeps in a canopy bed (her room has so much radar from the airport that even Y-shield does not shield it adequately). As an attorney, it is difficult to practice law with this issue, but I do my best, as I need to help support my family, and I enjoy working. Though I wish that everyone could feel what we emf feeling people do, because then this all would stop, I still would not wish this upon anyone. It is completely miserable. You, Mr. Bubbles, and you, Rusty, could be next. Perhaps you even are right now and do not realize it. Do you have problems sleeping? Tinnitus? Eye Fatigue? Headaches?
Well, plenty of activity here.
I have problems sleeping because my room sometimes gets too hot at night when I turn on the heater and forget to turn it down. I open a window and turn off the heater.
I have tinnitus from a life of not using enough ear protection. Time to see an audiologist and protect what hearing I have left.
I have eye fatigue from working with small fonts even since I was 6 years old. Good prescription glasses and not wearing contacts while working with a computer help a great deal, and so does making the fonts larger.
I have headaches when I drink too much, when my hat shrinks or my head gets fat from not exercising enough. I stop drinking booze, drink more water, retire the worn out hat, and keep on top of my exercises.
Now I feel great! I’m probably in the best shape of my life.
Thanks for asking…
Meter Guy,
Silver Springs has already cashed out. The forced sale is a done deal.
Now, people like you and I are starting to expose the fraud, but Silver Springs doesn’t care on bit if their party is over. They already made their money, and know that they will never have to pay any of it back.
It would be a crying shame if Silver Springs starts to bilk investors, but I don’t care.
If anyone is so stupid to invest in such scoundrels , then they get what they deserve, to be burned.
What gets me mad is how Silver Springs raped the taxpayers and ratepayers.
Thanks — I didn’t know that the Silver Springs sale was a done deal.
Aren’t Sensus and other Smart Meter companies are still for sale?
Lou Pai’s Enron Energy Services pioneered this Smart Meter market.
Lou fleeced Enron investors of ~$250,000,000, divorced his wife, and married a stripper.
Lou’s “frequent visits to strip clubs led to an affair with a stripper, Melanie Fewell.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Pai
Lou’s pals are now leading the charge, and cashing out, of the Smart Meter companies. What a corrupt industry.
Meter Guy,
What I meant was that Silver Springs has already made their money with the government backed forced sale of their networks in the smart meters.
Like you said, the ARRA federal stimulus money will run out, and even though sales of smart meters will drop like a rock, it doesn’t matter. The majority have already been sold anyway. It doesn’t make any difference if consumers did not order or chose to purchase a smart meter, all customers of the utility corporations who promoted the meters were forced into buying them, whether they wanted them or not, that is what I mean by a forced sale.
This smart meter/smart grid project is the most brilliant marketing scam ever cooked up in the history of the world.
It is the first time in history where a bunch of manufacturers got together with government officials and falsely promoted the sale of their products under the guise of somehow saving energy, and then tricking people into thinking that this was a mandatory purchase.
Now with all the rejection of smart meters, nobody can ask for a refund of the purchase price, even if they never received delivery of the product or have returned it as unwanted, unneeded over priced wireless junk. A forced sale with no refunds, “whether ya like it or not”.
Hi Josh,
I’m including a link to what is a sort of review of a YouTube video I wrote – “The Cloud Mystery.” In the light of this research, which was recently confirmed by work of scientists at CERN, and the correlated research, it no longer makes any sense, in my opinion, to speak of carbon footprints and often-draconian green house gas mitigations.
http://berealtruth.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/the-cloud-mystery/
I would urge you to do some research into U.N. Agenda 21 – “Sustainable Development” and, among other things, on its self-expressed goals of developing massive data files on everyone under the administrative jurisdiction of what is rapidly taking shape as global governance. The Smart Meters are an essential part of this information-control system. It is spoken of, unequivocally in such sources as Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Between Two Ages – America in the Technotronic Era” where he says bureaucrats will have instant access to detailed files of the common citizens.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with ICLEI – International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives – “Local Governments for Sustainability,” which Santa Cruz City and County were charter members of, having joined under contract something like fifteen years ago. ICLEI’s principle activities with their hundreds of member cities and counties in the U.S. involve helping them with “green house gas inventories,” and with planning for reducing carbon emissions. It’s now mandatory under federal programs that cities, counties and “regions” in possibly most of the U.S. have these kinds of initiatives, in order to receive federal funding at a minimum.
ICLEI works with numerous associated NGO’s, which are accredited with the U.N., for which Agenda 21 is official policy since it’s highly manipulated “adoption” at the Rio Summit in 1992. Incidentally, there was a co-conference to the Rio Summit attended by government and corporate representatives, including among them PG&E.
You may want to consider the possibility that not only corporations and corrupt governments, but the United Nations are part of an increasingly seamless system of administration and control that is hidden from the average human-being, is not subject to any transparency to us, and is certainly not accountable to our input. Much of the information given out by main-stream and even by often NGO-influenced alternative media is driven by strategies that promote the largely obscured objectives promoted through the U.N., which is often extolled as a democratically responsive force for peace.
Sincerely,
Bruce
Smart meters may keep track of how much and when a customer uses electricity, but that information is not very important compared to all the rest of the Next Generation Intelligence (NGI) systems put into place. And it is important to note that not all people will ever have smart meters in this country, most do not as a whole, and with the powerful resistance to smart meters happening now all over the world, smart meters are not the problem at all.
What we should be very concerned about are the intelligence systems that keep track of individual persons, not just electrical meters on buildings that serve many people not listed on the account information data.
Some examples of advanced intelligence gathering on individuals are the Electronic Medical Records Database. Obama gave $19 billion to the medical insurance industry in 2009 to start creating the most complete record system on every individual in the United States. This EMR database is to benefit the private medical insurance industry in keeping track of individuals who file claims. And it is expected that Medicare will eventually be privatized, so this gift will benefit the insurance industry immensely in the future.
The EMR database will have a very intimate record of everyone, which can be used by the myriad of private and public agencies for criminal investigations, insurance fraud investigations, employers seeking background information, marketing of pharmaceutical drugs and general tracking of individuals from birth to death.
Of course, there are also phone records and wiretaps that track individuals, and now the internet and also the use of smart phones are a very rich source of information about individuals.
And there are the surveillance cameras in the cities in public spaces and private security cameras, the GPS systems being offered in most new cars now, but soon will be installed on all new vehicles.
For those who want to do something about protecting their privacy, there are many things one can do to get control, but it may not be possible for everyone to do so in the future.
I have a long list of things that I do to reduce my electronic footprint and traceability.
The Silver Springs folks must be in a panic given all the posts they’ve made to this thread. To no avail either, SmartMeters are a losing proposition in the long run.
Pressured by mounting ratepayer revolt, PG$E in collusion with the CPUC finally conceded recently to an ostensibly corrective action for their increasingly unpopular Smart Grid Program–simultaneously capitalizing on yet another superb opportunity to aggrandize the old bottom line. They arbitrarily reversed their own policy by “allowing” ratepayers to “opt out” of a program they were never given a choice to opt into.
The single most overwhelming complaint has been the acute health detriments experienced by a significantly large number of people newly exposed to ubiquitous key components of the program, Smart Meters. Until the decision to “offer” opt out, PG$E’s position was essentially one of denial, i.e. that these new high tech meters with wireless capability are perfectly safe only because they comply with limited FCC standards for RF radiation–standards that deal only with thermal effects. Now we know that even the compliance with these inadequate standards turned out to be a lie.
See: eon3emfblog. net /?p=1724 [remove spaces]
Furthermore, FCC safety stipulations for installation of the meters were violated wholesale. See: stopsmartmeters. org/2011/09/19/smart-meters-violate-fcc-regulations-period/ [remove spaces]
When this fact was brought to the attention of the FCC, they refused to enforce the conditions made explicit in their own Grant of Equipment Authorization for Smart meter rollout. PG$E’s response to the high number of complaints about adverse health effects was in essence to implore people to quit their whining and find a different cause for their ailments. From a legal standpoint, this blunt “go-away” policy sufficed handsomely. Their attitude was: Your problem is not our problem, but your money will soon be ours.
Until now, the only reported instances when PG$E actually replaced smart meters with analog ones was because of complaints that crucial household electrical equipment had either performed erratically or failed altogether. Now with opt-out, PG$E is suddenly concerned about possible medical sensitivity. On their written Smart Meter Opt-Out Form, there is a box for us to “check here if you operate life support or other sensitive medical equipment in your home.” The operative word here is “sensitive”. To be sure, our very bodies qualify as “medical equipment” that automatically “operate life support” 24-7. Inconveniently, our bodies are also biologically “sensitive”–often symptomatically so–to EMF high-intensity pulsed radiation.
Why do they want to know about our medical status? Why do they care? Their question ostensibly limits their concern to “sensitive medical equipment” such as pacemakers and dialysis machines, while conspicuously ignoring physical sensitivity to EMF. Might their concern have anything to do with CPUC code section 453(b)?
“No public utility shall prejudice, disadvantage, or require different rates or deposit amounts from a person because of ancestry, medical condition, marital status or change in marital status, occupation, or any characteristic listed or defined in Section 11135 of the Government Code. A person who has exhausted all administrative remedies with the commission may institute a suit for injunctive relief and reasonable attorney’s fees in cases of an alleged violation of this subdivision. If successful in litigation, the prevailing party shall be awarded attorney’s fees.”
How will PG$E deal with this pesky little CPUC clause? For the majority of us who have not yet developed noticeable pathological “medical conditions”, they are off the hook. But for those of us physically unable to endure prolonged proximity to these demonic devices, their specious, convoluted, patronizing, posturing newspeak legalese might run like this:
If you fail to reveal to us that you are medically sensitive, then we have no way of knowing your condition, and therefore certainly cannot be held responsible for discriminating against you under CPUC code section 453 (b).
If on the other hand you declare to us that you are medically/EMF sensitive, then we both know that you are aware of your condition. (By the way, you’ll need physician-certified proof of your condition.) To “remedy” your problem, we “offer” you a “choice” to have a different meter that would hopefully, but not assuredly, cause you less adverse reaction. And because you take the bait by making that “choice” fully cognizant of your medical sensitivity, we cannot be held liable for discrimination against you. After all, we never compelled you to have a Smart meter, at least not lately.
(Incidentally, beware that this “choice” is undeniably the more expensive one, for reasons we conjure up to justify the higher cost. And by the way, if you have both gas AND electric “service”, the real cost will actually amount to twice as much as what we already said it would be.) In any case, rest assured that the “choice” is “yours”, which we wholeheartedly and “fully support”. Paper or plastic?
As you can see, whether you do or don’t declare medical sensitivity, we shall not be held liable for discrimination. We have (arguably) indemnified ourselves. So don’t bother suing us. We asked about your medical sensitivity only out of due diligence in compliance with CPUC code section 453 (b).
Now, regarding those meter access issues and your Pit Bulls:
Additional surcharges will apply for canine power surges.
However, power surges induced by energy-sucking Smart meters like the ones pictured at the links below, come at no extra cost
See: emfsafetynetwork. org/?page_id=1280
And: emfsafetynetwork. org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/160-SantaRosa-SM-fire-3.jpg
[remove spaces]
Incidentally, to help save money and the planet, we’re recycling some of our old meter readers by offering a Special Fire & Close-out Sale on Smart-tasting Dog Food. It’s part of our new Customer Mollification/Energy Mastication Program.
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For anyone compelled to sign a Smart Meter Opt-Out Form, good advice bears repeating: Do so only with qualifiers like “Under Duress”, “In Protest.”
Here’s the lawsuit. False commercial speech. False advertising. Privacy violations (long list).
“Private Memoirs of a Smart Meter” University of Massachusetts Amherst
https://stopsmartmeters.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Private-Memiors-of-Smart-Meter.pdf
Shows how data can be extracted from the “smart” meter to tell what is going on in your house.
The power companies have said this isn’t possible for years now, and have sent out pamphlets explaining how they keep your data private and the “smart” meter isn’t spying on you. Don’t forget it’s completely re-programmable AT ANY TIME from remote, so just because they say it won’t do this or that now doesn’t mean it can’t do that in the future, like make the data reports contain more data etc…
GET ON IT!! Where’s all the lawyers?