Oh my, here we go again.
It seems the pseudoscience quacks are at it again, this time decrying the dangers of Smart Meters used for Smart Grid applications.
To hear them tell it Smart Meters will irradiate you with high levels of RF, causing all kinds of maladies including cancer, high blood pressure, scurvy, baldness, erectile dysfunction, higher taxes, and chronic halitosis. (Yes, I know these are ridiculous exaggerations, but so are the claims being made by this latest group of Luddites.) From their descriptions, you'd think these things were pumping out power equivalent to that of a microwave oven. They don't. They seem to believe they're transmitting constantly. They aren't.
To address their first point, Smart Meter transmitters have a maximum output of a watt or less on the two radio bands used for this purpose. In most cases Smart Meter transmitter output is in the milliwatt range (thousandths of a watt) because they don't need to transmit very far. Your cell phone transmits more power than that and you hold it against your head. A Smart Meter is usually located outside your home and is nowhere near the occupants.
Second, Smart Meters only transmit when commanded to do so by the utility, generally a few times a day. Even so, the exposure from Smart Meters is still a small fraction of that from a number of other RF sources in and around the home even if it transmits 100% of the time (See Figure 1 in linked PDF above.) With the low duty cycle of Smart Meters (each transmission lasts less than a second), the maximum exposures experienced will be even less. Your laptop or tablet using its wireless connection will expose you to more RF than a Smart Meter ever will. Yet none of the Luddites using them complains about this RF exposure. (Maybe it's because laptops and iPads are useful to these science-ignorant do-gooders, so they're willing to overlook the 'dangers' they pose.)
The pseudo-scientific crap these folks are peddling will do more harm than the Smart Meters they're condemning.
This is the price we pay for indoctrination masquerading as an educational system.
It seems the pseudoscience quacks are at it again, this time decrying the dangers of Smart Meters used for Smart Grid applications.
To hear them tell it Smart Meters will irradiate you with high levels of RF, causing all kinds of maladies including cancer, high blood pressure, scurvy, baldness, erectile dysfunction, higher taxes, and chronic halitosis. (Yes, I know these are ridiculous exaggerations, but so are the claims being made by this latest group of Luddites.) From their descriptions, you'd think these things were pumping out power equivalent to that of a microwave oven. They don't. They seem to believe they're transmitting constantly. They aren't.
To address their first point, Smart Meter transmitters have a maximum output of a watt or less on the two radio bands used for this purpose. In most cases Smart Meter transmitter output is in the milliwatt range (thousandths of a watt) because they don't need to transmit very far. Your cell phone transmits more power than that and you hold it against your head. A Smart Meter is usually located outside your home and is nowhere near the occupants.
Second, Smart Meters only transmit when commanded to do so by the utility, generally a few times a day. Even so, the exposure from Smart Meters is still a small fraction of that from a number of other RF sources in and around the home even if it transmits 100% of the time (See Figure 1 in linked PDF above.) With the low duty cycle of Smart Meters (each transmission lasts less than a second), the maximum exposures experienced will be even less. Your laptop or tablet using its wireless connection will expose you to more RF than a Smart Meter ever will. Yet none of the Luddites using them complains about this RF exposure. (Maybe it's because laptops and iPads are useful to these science-ignorant do-gooders, so they're willing to overlook the 'dangers' they pose.)
The pseudo-scientific crap these folks are peddling will do more harm than the Smart Meters they're condemning.
This is the price we pay for indoctrination masquerading as an educational system.
True.
I have to admit that I'm not keen on the Smart Meter concept myself. But that has more to do with the fact that I understand how easy it is for technology to be hacked, broken, or otherwise disabled....
I have no problems with the folks who have honest concerns about RF exposure. It's the ignorant Luddites who piss me off as they spout 'talking points' rather than actual scientifically verified facts. It's scaremongering, pure and simple. Some of the anti-Smart Meter propaganda (for that's what it is) is so factually deficient as to be laughable. The 'problems' with Smart Meters seems to grow with every iteration of "Why Smart Meters Will Kill You!"
To be fair at least a few of the folks using that argument have honestly tried to avoid using things around the house that emit RF. Saw an article on a family that was being forced to get a Smart Meter, and according to the article (which, since I don't personally know the family I can't attest to the truthfullness thereof) they didn't have cellphones, only didn't have wireless and was attached to a landline, that sorta thing. They'd bought a house that had quite a bit of space between them and the neighbors to avoid anything from the neighbors. I had more sympathy for them than I do for most of the folks having a fit.