As PG&E shareholders and employees walked up to the firm’s headquarters at 77 Beale St. in San Francisco to attend the annual shareholders meeting yesterday, they were confronted by a raucous ratepayer revolt, with chants of “Our Health is NOT for Sale” and “We say NO FEE Charge the Utility.” Many entering were visibly uncomfortable. Voge Smith, a Novato resident whose petition demanding a halt to opt out fees has generated nearly 3000 signatures- spoke of widespread health problems from smart meters, and was allowed inside the building with ABC 7 On Your Side reporters, who aired this report.
Thank you to all who attended the protest and joined the growing call for an end to extortionate and punitive opt out fees (and an end to the smart grid!). If you couldn’t attend the protest but still want to contribute, please consider a donation to help us keep fighting smart meters.
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And the spokeswoman from PG&E says that there are very few people who are opposed to the SmartMeters, just like there are very few people who are opposed to funding foreign oil wars etc., etc.
The reality is, this opposition is being played down by the media, conservative bloggers and the utility corporations.
If there were so few people opposed, then why did PG&E cave in and admit that the SmartMeters and there radio smart grid are not at all mandatory to upgrade the electrical power grid ?
There is a huge opposition across the globe to the automated radio meters, and PG&E has acknowledged it with their actions. We have made a difference, and we won !
Thank you everyone for your efforts, and continue to oppose and additional fees to not have SmartMeters.
The SmartMeter program was one of the biggest business blunders in history, bar none.
PG&E started the SmartMeter program in 2006, and had their ratepayers order and pay for untold millions of first generation SmartMeters that used the power line carrier (PLC) technology.
PLC transmits RF on top of the power lines when the 60 Hz sine waves zero out 60 times per second. PLC works great, but it has problems passing signals through old ferrite core transformers.
So, PG&E installed around 850,000 of the first generation meters, only to find that they did not work reliably or at all.
So, rather than starting to upgrade the electrical power grid , PG&E quietly recalled all the first generation SmartMeters and cooked up a radio smart grid instead. What did PG&E do with all those useless PLC meters ? That is the big blunder that I am asking about. How many millions of the ratepayers dollars were wasted by PG&E’s lack of knowledge and lack of testing first ?
It is reasons like this that the utilities are being called out on the carpet, and there are many, many more.
Check out the San Onofre nuclear plant shutdown, that has been effect since January of this year by SCE.
Haven’t seen much coverage at either Huffington OR Drudge, the left or the right media. I can tell you that I have heard reporters trying to be balanced on the smart meter issue get a lot of criticism. A lot. It makes sense when media is run by money from telecom advertisers. The telecom industry is super flush and throwing it everywhere. They are even advertising to toddlers now. “Honey, it’s app time” was in a recent at&t magazine.
As for recent coverage, take a look at these news videos, which managed to get out:
http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/3486396/smart_meters_causing_mysterious_ailments
The only reason more people aren’t opposed to “smart” meters is because they’ve never heard of them! Anyone with reading and reasoning skills will look at the cold, hard facts and decide that don’t want their families radiated day and night, they don’t want sky-high bills, they don’t want to risk life and limb for absolutely NO BENEFIT to the customer whatsoever. We just have to keep informing people that there is NO LAW THAT SAYS THEY HAVE TO HAVE A “SMART” METER!
At any rate, you all made a large impression, and I know it will go a long way toward the day when opt outs are not only free, they are the norm! And then? There will eventually just be “opt in.” And, as PG & E knows, only a teeny, tiny trickle of people will do that. Major fail, PG & E. You need to go back to the drawing board and put the interests of the PEOPLE at the forefront this time!
A few moments ago I was one of the uninformed people of the U.S. I had no idea what a smart meter was, did, or how it related to the national electrical grid. But after multiple hours of research and scouring of independent and government run studies the flaws within the smart meter system and the smart grid that each of you so eloquently stated are sadly, either irrelevant, false, or exacerbated. As for the issue with GE, stating that smart meters would become mandatory and you would have to pay to opt out, was wrong, yes, but there was no legality behind the claims they were making, which means that if the situation ever breached your daily life, it would have no effect on you or your family. In regards to the claim that smart meters are spying on you, in reference to your energy use, is true. But at what point are you allowed to get mad a television provider for collecting data on which shows are the most viewed? You can’t. By saying that the smart meter is spying on you and your family, is saying that the meter is not allowed to do its job. The reality is that in order for the system (the meter, electric grid, and electric production) to operate to it’s full potential, the meter needs to communicate to the power production plants. The whole point of a smart meter is to connect you and your home into a two-way dialogue between you and the power plant, helping to smooth out peaks and dips within the energy demand throughout the day. By smoothing out these peaks and valleys it reduces the amount of energy plants needing to be operated daily, thus reducing CO2 emissions by an approximate 60-211 million metric tons of CO2 solely in the U.S. alone. And you can’t have these benefits without a vast collection of data. If you wish not to have detailed data on your home energy use, to not make money off of buying energy efficient appliances, and to not reduce your carbon footprint ten fold that is okay. But what you cannot do is tell the public that smart meters bring no benefit to the consumer. If the projected development of smart meter and smart grid technology goes as planned, an estimated 418,000 jobs will be created by 2019, your electric prices in $/kWh will decrease, and if half of the homes in the U.S. embraced the smart meter and grid technology, there would be 2 million vehicles taken off of the road, or in other measurements, an approximate 31.2 million square miles of trees replanted. If the biggest concern pertaining to the smart meter is that you will have to pay to not partake, will reap no benefits, and you will lose your privacy, I implore you: please reconsider.
Data from: Environmental Defense Fund. (2012). Smart Grid: Revolutionizing Our Energy Future [reference, promotion article]. Retrieved May 18, 2012, from Environmental Defense Fund website: http://www.edf.org/energy/smart-grid-overview?s_src=ggad_smartgrid&gclid=CK_7nrr-irACFQZ5hwodMm1Tog
Litos Strategic Communication. (2009). What a smart grid means to our nation’s future (6th ed.) [Brochure]. Retrieved from http://www.smartgrid.gov
SGNR and EPRI. (2008, January 1). The Green Grid 2009 Energy report (Rep. No. 1016905). Retrieved from Electric Power Research Institute website: http://www.smartgridnews.com
The Smart Grid [Government Website]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2012, from U.S Department of Energy website: http://www.smartgrid.gov
SmartMeter. (2012). See Your Power [Company Website ]. Retrieved May 18, 2012, from http://www.pge.com/smartmeter/
Walls, J. (2012, January 15). Wireless means cost savings [Online forum message]. Retrieved from CTIA: The Wireless Association : http://blog.ctia.org/2011/10/11/ctia-bsr-report-proves-wireless-means-cost-savings-and-efficiencies-for-businesses/?gclid=CIbwmPKBi7ACFQtThwodKR2anw
go read on the net you will find more people that do not want the smart metter i am one of them my house power goes on and off again and again and again it did not do this untill they put this so called smart metter on my house they said they called and i did not get the call and they said they sent a letter and i did not get that to it is a mess so this is what i say take the metter off my house and put the old one back it worked geart and my power bill will go back down the smart metter is what is cause the bills to go up