What a deal, you get a $300 thermostat for free and $25 
Posted on 03/25/2011 4:24:34 PM PDT by Nachum
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers afraid of the radiation from the company's wireless SmartMeter may soon have a choice: Accept the device as is. Or ask PG&E to turn off the meter's transmitter - and pay higher monthly bills as a result. As much as $20 more per month. (Snip) In a bid to defuse the controversy, the company suggested in November that it might offer customers a way to opt out of the $2.2 billion program. The president of the California Public Utilities Commission ordered PG&E this month to submit its plan by Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Smart meters offers nothing but more government control over our lives.
No where in this article did I see any statement concerning what exactly the radiation exposure doses were from these devices.
Folks probably get more of a dose by day hiking in the Sierra Nevadas or going to the beach on a weekend.
I wonder what proportion of the overall RF energy passing through a household these little transmitters would comprise. It’s already a world full of passersby and neighbors using cell phones, as well as a veritable babel of broadcast and private radio signals.
Yet, if there were worries, I would suggest that the transmitters be hooked up to antennas at the roof ridge line with ground planes to attenuate as much of the downward directed radiation as possible. This would still be low enough for cell phone towers to catch the broadcasts.
They installed that meter without my permission now they want to charge me to disable it?
Sunshine, X rays, and radio waves can’t all be lumped into one category. Researchers allege that transmissions at cell phone frequencies can produce harmful effects to nearby body parts. (Which might explain why cell phone users look so stupid cradling their devices and yakking away to distant unseen entities whilst in the middle of crowds....)
Who cares? Why should people have to pay for something they never wanted? And of course, why should they pay for something forced on them?
PG&E = Public’s Greatest Enemy.
Makes me curious...did they bill the residents of San Bruno for their increased gas consumption last September?
In Wisconsin, WE Energies is trying to get people to let them install their thermostats so they can cut your air conditioning for as long as four hours each day when power usage hits a peak in the summer. Someday the government will control your thermostat and they’ll decide how warm or cool you should be.
The only thing I might want from something like this would be remote meter readings, and that would require what, a one second burst once a month? Virtually nothing. If the power company wants to know more, they should put their transmitters on power poles and on gas mains, not on people’s meters.
What a deal, you get a $300 thermostat for free and $25
CA is a beautiful state but man have they screwed it up.
“Sunshine, X rays, and radio waves can’t all be lumped into one category.”
That’s funny! Since I used to work in the nuclear industry, I can say truthfully that all three can be dangerous, particularly sunshine for me personally. More than once I went to the hospital with massive blistering sunburns - I’m a redhead who burns between the freckles.
Distance, time of exposure, and shielding is the key to staying safe around radiation caused by sunshine and radio wave sources. Building a metal shield for a transmitting meter is simple using a very large metal can sliced in half and placed between the meter and the house. As for radio waves themselves in the open environment, they are everywhere and have been so for many decades!
Nope. That's the utilities' old vision still being rolled out. But the more comprehensive Smart Grid being developed under the auspices of NIST per the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007 is converging on a somewhat different direction.
"Cut your demand" (emergency) will still be a part of it, but more likely they will convey price over time and let you, the consumer, decide how to respond. It may be as simple as a "Home Energy Manager" box with a three-way switch: "Save all I can" / "Typical savings" / "I'll pay whatever."
Communicating thermostats are a "solution" very likely to create a sizable backlash.
Here in S FL (Ft. Lauderdale burbs) they forced the SMs on our houses.
Fortunately our homes are cement block and the signal is greatly attenuated by cement.
Businesses should have to get the owner’s permission to install any device that radiates on the customer’s property.
If the meter had the ability to limit my service yea I would be quite angry. As it stands now my meter is actualy now read once a month rather than averaged as the meter reader often did if he was in a hurry. Meaning I don't get smacked with a big unexpected bill the following month where his guesstimate was way off. But folks if they want to cut off power to deal with a near brown out situation due to high demand all they have to do is get on the computer and switch off the line at the substation.
If it transmits, does it also receive? As long as it can be limited to transmit the usage once a month, I would have little problem with it - assuming the answer to the above question is no.
It can be polled yes. I'm not sure of what the meter in question is capable of. All the article is about though is Radio Frequency radiation hysteria not surprising for Cali though.
I live in Tennessee. I came home one afternoon and my power was off. My neighbors weren't home so I wasn't sure if it was just my road {fed off a single tap} or just me. The dispatcher told me there was no power on my meter though. I drove to my neighbors and their lights were on. When the utility company came up they came to my place first and went straight to the transformer. Their fuse on their lines had came loose on the service to my home.
Really unless it has some capability to limit power at peak times {which would be very complicated and expensive} all they do is read the meter once a month unless you report an outage. IOW it saves them money & trouble shooting time by helping determine who all is without power. If they can determine if you have power from their computer at the distribution center or the man on calls home then they might save themselves and you time by saying "hey will you go try resetting your main circuit breaker? We show your meter has power to it."
What I don't get is why are they using antennas when they have systems out there that use the utility lines itself. BTW that is also likely the way your Cable TV, Internet, and phone service to your home will be routed through in a decade or so. Ma Bell knows it too. The power grid will soon also be the land line communications grid.
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