“Smart meters are a tool of Agenda 21 and not to be tolerated.”
Sharon Peker of the Chattanooga Tea Party writes at the Chattanoogan:
… Smart meters may be “smart” but they are not private. Once a smart meter is attached to a home, it can tell how many people live in the house, when they get up, when they go to bed and when they aren’t home. It can tell how many showers they take and loads of laundry they do, how often they use the microwave and how much and what kind of TV they watch. The information gathered from your house is sent to a neighborhood smart meter which then wirelessly transmits your information to a municipal network and to the national network which is the Smart Grid.
“Privacy and cybersecurity are among the greatest challenges in implementing the smart grid,“ said Nick Sinai, energy and environment director at the FCC. Eventually the utilities will control how much energy you use and when and be able to shut off “smart chip”-equipped appliances remotely.
Smart meters are a tool of Agenda 21 and not to be tolerated. Agenda 21 is a UN game plan for radical transformation of the global society. Think “Sustainable Development” and Obamacare. Then there’s Cap and Trade, that Obama still desperately wants, which will allow the government to have a vice-like grip on how Americans live. As part of this, the electrical companies are installing “smart monitoring systems” to track usage of energy by residents. This represents only one area of control, but a critical one, as the Obama administration attempts to restrict individual rights…
Right!!!!!
I’ve been learning from you guys besides do you not know that UN peacekeepers wear blue helmets? Your ignorance speaks volumes!
Only in that they are governmental mandates. A lot of people still hate to wear seat belts which is a governmental mandate.
“The government mandates a lot of things, most with generally good reasons.”
Maybe you can explain to us what the good reason would be for the government mandating the use of smart meters in residential and commercial electric usage or car miles driven. The government never does things for “good reasons” without growing itself and becoming more powerful. Big difference between safety and control. You are comparing smart meters to laws against jaywalking and speeding?
Once again, GreggM talks about things that aren’t there. In G Taylor’s remarks, I cannot find the word ‘socialists’, nor any mention of ‘blue helmets. Sort of like Gregg has floating glaciers, and soot in an article that doesn’t mention it. Looks a bit like imitating the IPCC’s approach.
just toss a linksys router near the meter and watch all hell break loose, million dollar power bills
wow, friggin excellent points, but the pot growers will be happy, as they hire crackers off Elance for 30 bucks an hour to defeat the meters.
Guess that makes sense, computer geeks are trying to replace humans everywhere they can and if it cuts costs and makes the bosses richer, they’ll be all for it!
I bet you also speed whenever possible, don’t wear a seat belt, don’t have auto insurance and jay walk every chance you get. The government mandates a lot of things, most with generally good reasons. Their implementation leaves something to be desired but this one I see as no better or worse than most. To scream socialists are coming and the blue helmets are going to come to your door is a bit much!
We have enough coal and natural gas to power all of our on and off peak needs for two centuries and instead we want to monitor how people use electricity.
Gregg M : If I want to install a device to save myself money, no problem. When the government tells me I must do so, big problem. Remember these are the same geniuses who made toilets tanks larger than 1.6 gallons illegal, 100 watt light bulbs illegal, and in MN they are considering GPS type devices mandatory in automobiles to allow a milage tax.
Measuring use at the meter is worse than useless. To balance loads, you need to measure at the transformer, before transmission loss. That’s what’s useful. Smartmeters cannot and will not empower anyone to save money. Nor are they the horrific monitoring monsters. Anyone good enough to hack into the meter network has easier ways to steal your money (though the point about security is valid), and Big Brother doesn’t have to have that to keep tabs on you (though I will concede, the data is valid). The discussion about hooking appliances into the grid for remote control is a non-starter, and the day that is mandated is the day I take an automatic weapon to the White house.
Smartmeters have one use and one use only, to lay off meter readers. That’s it.
Ben: You have a problem with that? /sarc
lol ol me: It’s not up to the customer to see and use the data to optimize usage. We aren’t smart enough for that. It’s up for a central controlling authority to do that for (to?) you.
I don’t know about you, but having dealt with central controlling authorities in college, working for the federal government, state government, and local government, and as a customer to cable and power companies I rather dread that prospect.
I think there is some confusion between smart boxes and smart meters, because they both use the word “smart.” Our electric utility used to offer the smart boxes you mention, it died out pretty quickly because even though people got a discount, they liked to have hot water when the wanted it. The smart meters are entirely different, they were installed here recently and simply automatically measure watt hours used for the entire house on a more granular basis than monthly human meter readers. This gives the utility the option to offer time-of-use billing, leaving it to the consumer to control when they use larger draws. Sure, they are trying to incentivize people to alter behavior, which needs to be scrutinized, but I do not really see much to be concerned about yet.
I am also skeptical of the claims of wireless networking. The only infrastructure changes made in the area are that the meters have been swapped out. And, looking at the meter (it is clear) I see no indication of an antenna. Besides why would they use such an unreliable means of communication when power-line networking is not only more reliable, but much cheaper (they already have the lines run to your house).
Gamecock is entirely correct. You can only save money if you are more efficient than your neighbor. Once your neighbors become more efficient, everyones cost goes back up to where it was before you were efficient.
Perfect example: When you buy a fuel efficient car, at first you are saving money. But then as the income to the state drops as more people switch to more fuel efficient vehicles, either the tax rate goes UP or they start instituting a different tax altogether. In the case of automobiles, the push is on to start charging a tax per mile driven…. in ADDITION to the fuel tax. In the end, you are driving a much smaller, less powerful, less safe car than you were before and its costing you as much or more per mile than it was before you became efficient.
In the end if YOU want to save money, you have to be more efficient than your neighbors. As soon as all your neighbors are forced to be efficient as well, everyone loses.
Measuring energy use in no way ensures efficiency.
Gentlemen, regulated monopoly power companies have legistlated guaranteed
rates of return. You cannot, by definition, save money.
I was about to put this into the ‘skeptic’ pile, but with the FCC’s Nick Sinai understatedly acknowledging ‘challenges’ in the smart meter system, yeah, Houston, we may have a problem.
But: I had the pleasure of discussing the workings of ‘smart meters’ with the man who developed and implemented the first such system in the US. The local power supplier was owned by the city that built it. The plant was working at capacity, with occasional brownouts at times of peak demand. The city could not afford to build a new plant or expand the existing one.
This was back in about 1987 or so. He got radio-controlled switch boxes from, if I recall, Sweden. A computer controller at the local fire station (yep) did ‘random rolling blackouts’ of air conditioners and water heaters when the plant was nearing full capacity. Result: the existing power plant was able to continue operating, and no more brownouts.
Consumers were actually even paid to participate. The only consumer information involved was who got a discount on their utility bills. The obvious question is, if the new smart meters can ‘phone home’ about an individual’s power usage on lots of appliances, what is the value of that information? And how can the costs of the system be justified?
Bear in mind, the system as described in the article above would require a smart meter on nearly all appliances, including one for the flow of gas to gas-powered water heaters. With another meter to factor in usage of of the gas cooking stove/oven. Supposedly, these would all be equipped so that individual appliances could be remotely shut down for various reasons.
I suspect some exaggeration is going on here. The value of gathering and storing the information is nearly zero compared to the costs involved.
lil ol me,
It can’t do it by itself. That’s why new appliances are coming that can communicate with the smart meter. The utility company will be able to turn off certain appliances during peak times. So that dryer full of clothes can be shut down and the wet clothes can sour which means you will spend more water and electricity washing them again to get rid of the smell. Want to keep your home at a certain temperature even when you’re not home? Tough. They can adjust or shut down your heat or A/C if it is putting too much of a strain on the smart grid.
energy will likely be able to be used more efficiently on a macro scale (i.e., balancing demand during the day) which will lower peak usage requirements (i.e., companies have to build fewer power plants to provide same amount of energy) resulting in lower electricity bills.
What do you mean by “efficient energy use?”
where does she get the details on what a smart meter can do? The one I have cannot do ANY of those things. This is where the term Tin Hat gains traction and poses a disservice to real science and engineering.
Yep, efficient energy use is a sure fire UN plot! You might actually save some money on your heating and cooling bills, those evil *%*#+*s