Smart Meters Draw (Misguided) Opposition from Left and Right in California

by Terrence O'Brien on February 1, 2011 at 08:30 AM

As the government and utility companies have continued to work towards modernizing our energy infrastructure and ushering in the era of the smart grid, they've met with surprisingly strong resistance across the political spectrum. The backlash against wireless smart meters has been particularly strong in California, where Tea Party conspiracy theorists and overzealous left-wing Luddites have found themselves on the same side of a battle to keep modern electricity meters out of their homes. Pacific Gas and Electric has been installing wireless smart meters in homes across northern California, but activists have gone to great lengths to cease the rollout, including blockading the company's garages.

The meters originally sparked outrage because residents claimed they were reporting artificially high electricity usage, but those accusations were quickly debunked after several studies confirmed their accuracy. Once that tactic was shot full of holes, the Golden State's activists changed their arguments. Suddenly Tea Party activists were arguing that monitoring the electricity usage of appliances was a violation of privacy rights. (This coming from the group that demands President Obama turn over private medical documents to prove he isn't a secret Kenyan Muslim!) Meanwhile, bleeding-hearts were voicing concerns about potential health issues and the potential for harm to people suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity (E.H.S.), a disease that has been repeatedly shown by medical studies to be a figment of the sufferer's imagination.

The anti-smart meter crowd has won some traction with local officials, though. The Board of Supervisors in Santa Cruz county extended a moratorium on installations, and officials in Marin County have outright banned their installation in its unincorporated areas.

The truth of the matter, however, is that there is little evidence that the low levels of electromagnetic radiation emitted by wireless radios have harmful health effects, and there is even less evidence that E.H.S. actually exists. And while we understand the desire to protect your privacy at every turn, especially against a powerful corporate entity like Pacific Gas and Electric, there is very little information that utility companies can glean about you or share, simply by using a smart meter. The meters report broad usage trends, help identify peak hours of usage and, when paired with appliances that can communicate with smart meters, identify potential energy hogs in your home. The live reporting of electricity usage will not betray to the utility companies or the government that you spend the hours of 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. watching furry porn followed by marathon sessions of the '700 Club.' True, these updates will require some trade-offs from the consumer. Ultimately, though, a smart grid will help us lower our overall energy consumption and help prevent massive power outages, like the one that struck the northeast in 2003.

Tags: california, ehs, electromagnetic hypersensitivity, ElectromagneticHypersensitivity, ems, green, politics, privacy, smart grid, smart meters, SmartGrid, SmartMeters, tea party, TeaParty

source: New York Times

Comments

scbozzoFeb 1st 2011 6:27PM

Neutral

Your article is misleading the public; you do a disservice with your journalism; you'll be in the front lines, as the human race hurtles to the cliff to throw itself off. What gives you this confidence in industry-backed science, and corporate claims? They are about blindly bulldozing the environment and people and wildlife, in the name of profit. America is having an autism epidemic, due to how very chemically and electrically toxic our world has become. Corporations are having to spend billions and billions on lobbying, to prevent these horrifying truths from causing any setbacks in their profits and their determined race toward the cliff. You think there is no science to support these things? You turn a blind eye to thousands of peer-reviewed studies, and to thousands and thousands who are sickened, and many fully disabled, by chemical and electrical toxicity. I'm glad your life, and the lives of your loved ones, and your children, have not been ruined by chemical and electrical toxins. Wake up! Rome is burning! People and animals and the environment are being harmed, deformed, destroyed at ever more rapid rates, in the name of corporate hegemony. Wake up, wake up, stop the madness!

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D. SligarFeb 3rd 2011 12:08PM

Neutral

I had a smart-meter installed in my apartment in San Mateo and had no problems with it whatsoever. For that matter, it was, in fact, more accurate than prior to its installation. These things are useful in large urban areas where brownouts during summer months are common. How? PG&E uses a tiered billing system, meaning you get charged the basic rate if your usage isn't high and scales from there as you exceed typical usage. I'm not sure what "typical" entails, but the BTUs made sense with my usage (even when I went over).

The argument about electrotoxins and EHS... really?! How many of your neighbors have wireless devices, microwave ovens, cellular devices and other items that emit EM radiation? Even the power running through your home radiates EM. The smart-meters operate in the same spectrum, so what's the issue? You CHOSE to live in an urban area, might as well deal with all the pros and cons that come along with it.

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