Your cooperation isn't required for anything regarding their legal right of way to access their meter on your property. Have you read the contract that you signed to receive their service?
I was talking about the act of refusing to participate in digital currency, global public health measures, and the restriction of movement putting us at risk of reprisals. Such reprisals could very well include loss of utilities until we cooperate
I'm gonna go in a little different direction. Versant provides electric transmission and distribution to approximately one third of the State of Maine's 1.3mm population. It is a regulated monopoly. It is a public utility. It offers a natural monopoly service that is considered essential. You could be off grid and that would be great, but most of us are going to have to rely on electricity coming down roads on poles and we don't want several providers of redundant service, so we grant a monopoly to one. And we oversee that with a Public Utility Commission. That's the idea and the ideal. It is very compromised and corrupt and colluded in actuality.
On top of all that, to add insult to injury, Versant is 100% owned by ENMAX, a private for profit corporation, that in turn is 100% owned by the City of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Yup, you heard that correctly. ENMAX pays a dividend to its owner, City of Calgary, or $50mm per year, as a reward.
The City of Calgary paved its sidewalks and builds its public ice arenas on profits guaranteed by the PUC of Maine for Versant.
Next month Mainers will vote on Nov 8 to force the purchase of Versant (and CMP, the dominant provider which is in turn owned in large part by the sovereign wealth funds of Norway and Qatar - recycled oil wealth) by a new cooperative entity, Our Power. This would replace the investor owned, profit at any price, abusive current utilities with a statewide consumer utility that would pay not dividends to shareholders. It would only pay bond payments based on revenues. It would replace "expensive" capital with much less expensive capital. Would it ram smart meters down customers throats? Perhaps, but probably not to the extent that CMP and Versant have been hell bent for years to install meters that many customers don't really want. Today 30% of Americans get their electricity from rural cooperatives and municipal systems. Generally, the level of customer satisfaction is higher in non investor owned grids.
The "stalking horse" of "smart" meter imposition is marginal cost reduction, and one of its fellow "horsemen" is fiduciary responsibility.
It's quite the effective trap, and ownership change is highly unlikely to slow the rollout.
Amidst all of the very good arguments about employment, privacy, safety and reliability, the root of this change is explained parsimoniously by the drive for full automation of every process with an associated cash flow stream.
It's the most sweeping and comprehensive non-military wealth transfer in history, but its origin is within military research.
from an economics standpoint, it's a death cult. When it reaches its apogee, the descent of monetary velocity within the distribution curve will bottleneck to the point of near-cessation. This is the reason why modern monetary theory is being deployed; to accommodate that bottleneck.
"Smart" meter technology is only one tiny piece of the puzzle, interlocking as it does with other automation modalities. This is not a controversial assertion; the tech industry is very open about it.
I refused a smart meter and then had an interesting discussion with someone from the Private Utilities Commission. She had every excuse in the book as to why I should pay to have someone read my meter every other month. I then asked her if I was also paying for all those smart meters and she was dumbstruck. I love having a brain that fires fast so that it is hard work to out-argue me!
As I read Dr. Meryl's post, i thought, but we always USED to have a meter reader come with regularity. Except on a lone island in Atlantic--too troublesome for utility guys to get there--so we send in the number on the meter.
Yes, I remember phoning in the number on the meter even in a large city. Every six-months-to-a-year they would send an actual person so it wasn't as though, if you were to lie, they wouldn't catch up with you.
I am sorry for this undue distress over a meter that is working perfectly well. (We met in SLC. Our appeal over our Smart Meter Non-Consent is now officially in the Idaho Supreme Court system. Now, waiting...hopefully, they will not review it until after Nov 1st when the winter moratorium on service termination begins. If our case is not accepted, we will be going off-grid even in the winter.)
Our company told me that I could have mine removed and pay an extra $20 to have someone come out and read the meter. I told them it is worth the $20, but it is BS that they do that.
Here in Oregon they demand $10 dollars a month, but also demand 170 dollars to put the meter back right. Even if I consented am sure they would try to force an 'almost as bad' meter on me, this is how they are rolling. My guess is they bought all the stupid meters already.
How often would they come to read the meter? How often would you have to pay the $20? I imagine once the (sheeple) majority have smart meters, they will lower the boom on the rest. But, I still try to fight it whenever I can. Sheeple may at some point wake up, hopefully, before its too late. Thank you Dr. Nass for your bravery and info to us!
We ended up being pushed into it since the only solar net meters they offered were "smart." So I put a faraday cage around it. Where I live we call the electric folks the Power Nazis.
The signal they put out goes very far, so even when attenuated it didn't get in the way of their mission. The biggest offender is the smart meter collecting stations...
How did you put a faraday cage completely around it? You couldn't have disattched the meter from the house to install the cage, right? So, you've actually part of the cage on the inside wall of your house and then somehow connected to the rest of the cage on the outside of the house?
Most likely, the faraday cage will not be complete. To be complete, it can have no electrical conduits (wires) in or out of the faraday cage. Try putting your cell phone in a completely-sealed container, like a 4" pipe nub (oil field device) with two end caps. (Careful, the seller [will] suspect you of wanting to make a bomb if you buy these things all at once.) Or, I haven't tried it, but you could try a pressure cooker with a screw sealing the vent. Just MAKE SURE THAT YOU REMOVE THE SCREW before ever trying to cook with it. THAT would be a most disastrous bomb event for you. So, again, put your cell phone in there and close it up and try to call it from another phone.
Have fun playing with a faraday cage.
We used faraday cages in neurophysiology labs to record from electrical recordings in the nervous system. These were not complete cages, made of screen, but they did reduce the electrical noise and interference.
Just curious... What nervous system were you recording from and in what manner (how?)? Was all of your recording equipment also within the faraday cage, or were you trying to isolate the nervous system from the recording equipment?
Yes, we were trying to isolate the recording equipment from the biological material being studied. The recording equipment, and anything that could possibly be outside of such a partial Faraday cage, was kept outside. Such "rigs" are designed to reduce interference and noise to levels below what was necessary to get a good signal from the experimental preparation. I have seen in other labs, where there were long-term recordings, doors made of screen that could be pulled down over the front of the preparation and the microscope.
Via armored electrical cable, which has to pass through the faraday wire mesh. So, I imagine the trick is to orient the electrical wire such that any 5G exiting the cage is directed toward the ground.
The armor would have to be bonded to ground and have bypass capacitors to stop signal from leaving via the power lines. Wire mesh wouldn't work at the higher 5G frequencies. Only a solid conductor would.
I don't know. I'm not an electrical expert, which is why I opted out of a smart meter... I didn't want to have to deal with it. All my 5G in the house (router,computers) is shut off within each piece of equipment and everything is hard wired. I've a 4G flip phone...no internet capable smart phone and I'm getting a shielded case for that. I carry it in a shoulder bag, rather than in a pocket; and, at night it's downstairs and at least 40 feet from me. I'm considering painting the walls of my bedroom with a shielding paint.
They are masters (and mistresses) of manipulative, dissembling, misdirecting dys-communication.
There are college and graduate degrees in how to exploit this terrible use of language --- it is antithetical to the concept of language and communication for civilized people. It is the language of verbal and cognitive predators. It is a Sun Tzu vision of human interaction --- and not such a sunny one too, at that.
My uninformed opinion is that they will manage power allocations during rolling blackouts and save companies money by eliminating the need to physically read the meter. As everything’s connected with the eye of Sauron, I’m guessing that the amount of electricity and its price will depend if you have been naughty or nice.
About six years ago, I was living in a very small town in a very remote area of the South Island of New Zealand. When I received the email notification that my analog electric meter would be replaced with a shiny, new smart one, and explaining all the "advantages" of the new one, including no more having someone come onto our property to read it, and homeowners getting access to very detailed information about our electrical use "to save money," etc. The email notification had no information on how to refuse it. So then started the long, unfruitful process of trying to stop the installation. I soon heard that others in the small town had sent certified letters refusing it, but found out one day that it had already been installed without their knowledge or consent, and then came the very long, arduous process of trying to get it removed (which didn't happen; recipients were told that a chip was removed so it (presumably) wasn't a smart meter anymore ... and so the homeowners realized that at any time in the future, the chip can be quickly installed without their knowledge or consent during a meter read).
I, too, was told via email that it would cost more (I don't recall how much more) to keep the old one. I replied that I didn't care, and I wanted written confirmation from them that a new meter (whether with smart chip or not) would not be installed, as I had heard from acquaintances that your company unethically and shamefully installed them secretly despite the homeowner refusing them in writing. I got the written confirmation after a long back and forth with the scumbags, but I didn't trust it. I had a lock installed on my meter board. The meter reader could read it still through the glass window, but not open it. I also placed a warning over the lock: "WARNING: DO NOT INSTALL A NEW METER. Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
To top it off, I helped others in the community who didn't have the means or skill to fight it (I worked part-time as a volunteer literacy tutor for ESL immigrants). I moved out of that community a few years later (and informed the purchaser of my house about the likely risk of them being approached to switch out their meter and how to fight it, providing them with information on the dangers of smart meters), and I'm ready to do it all over again when (not if) it starts here in my current tiny community.
"smart" meters have three distinct functionalities.
1. they catch fire - so sad, your house burned down and so did your neighbor's, guess you'll have to move to a 10x10 in a 15 minute prison city
2. they emit dangers levels of mitochondria-damaging EMF
3. they communicate with and potentially can shut down other IoT devices, from your phone to your "smart" toaster to the mark of the beast in your hand. ok, that last one is just if you live in sweden or work for amazon.
I used to read electric meters back in the early 90's when the meter readers would stop by once a month and physically read each meter. The read is just like an odometer in a car in that it doesn't get reset but is simply uses the current read and they subtract the last months from it. Then "automated meters" came out. This sent into the utility a signal once a month that did essentially what the now unemployed meter reader had done for decades before. These types are NOT smart meters, but do get confused with them. Smart meters are sending constant on the fly usage information, and as often as every 15 minutes and monitors different things, such as power factor, reactive loads which is a bunch of stuff that usually costs the utility money and not the consumer. When they say it will make you more efficient, it is very likely that they will charge you more money than they did before. Also smart meters can be used to charge the customer more money for using power in peak demand times. Dumb or automated meters had no idea what hours of the day you used power, whereas smart ones do and during peak times, right around when people are cooking meals they can charge considerably more for the same KWH used.
Why they would require a meter reader to come out to read is puzzling. Automated meters have been doing this without human readers for several decades now. My guess is the utility was conflating smart meters with automated meters in order to get you to pay for something extra. You probably already had an automated meter and they are trying to gouge you for more money, all the while claiming efficiency is saving you money which it isn't. It is saving them money while charging you more.
can you please explain the difference between an 'automated' meter and an analog meter. can the old style analog meter be converted into an automated one? or would it be an entirely newer device? asking because though I know for a fact that we have an analog meter (with the clock-like dials), I have not noticed any person actually coming to 'read' it for several years now. ours is on the back of the house and they used to walk into our yard.
I'm going by what I knew 30 years ago when the utility I worked for was just starting to roll out automated meters. To answer your question, they can and do convert regular analog meters into automated. They are still analog (mechanical) but the device they install inside the meter housing converts that read to digital so it can be transmitted over the powerline to the utility's computer. I know that they would make the conversion in their meter shop and then swap them out.
The term digital can be confused with analog meters that had numbers read like an older car's odometer. Other analog meters like you described had 5 dials that would point to numbers laid out like a clock. When I think of digital, it's probably not mechanical but something computerized and uses binary. Any meter without moving parts would be digital.
Also something needs to be said about "estimated" usage readings. Sometimes utilities couldn't send a meter reader out for 2 or more months due to any number of things, usually weather. So they would estimate the usage based on the read from the previous month, or the same month of the previous year. Then when the meter reader did make it out to read, any error in the reading would be corrected automatically. It is not that they were just guessing and charging. The true accurate reading, since it doesn't reset will always come out in the wash whenever the meter reader does come out.
I'm many years out of date but I believe the smart meters won't have moving parts. Did a few searches on smart meters and found that while they look a little like the old meters, they have a LCD readout, and nothing spinning. Also I could tell the sites I looked at were industry paid for, and were trying to sell their meters using very misleading information. Judging from what they are saying about them it sounds very similar to other propaganda we have been exposed to in the past couple years. I think these meters are bad news for anyone concerned by the constant intrusion of tech into our lives. Another thing, having the ability to shut off your power remotely by the authorities in mass without sending anyone out has dystopian uses. Imagine going to a protest rally and having a camera id you with facial recognition and then by the time you get home your power is dead, and all ran by some AI monstrosity. This is all closer than we would like to imagine. Think of an EV that has a kill switch that can be thrown remotely, via satellite, 5G etc and from another country even. It can easily be used as another tool in the creation of a neo-feudal state we are racing towards.
thanks for your input. totally agree about the implications. sad how many non-critical thinkers can so easily call us all some kind of Luddites who reject technology. they don't see the difference between tech as a tool as opposed to a weapon.
Well said. Any tech that can be operated remotely can be targeted to shut down descent is in this day and age a weapon that can and will be used to shut off our means of survival. We got a glimpse of what they can do in Canada and the trucker rally and how they shut off bank accounts, canceled insurance, put people in some cases put families out on the street, all without their day in court. That weapon was crude in comparison to what the new things will be such as smart meters to instantly shut off your heat, cookstove, lights and refrigeration. Or CBDC's that can shut off your funds, or simply limit them. And these things can be applied to the general population simply to lock down everyone, when their car won't budge or the electricity needs to be shut off for several hours a day for fake climate change "emergencies". We all need to avoid smart devices as much as we are able. Keep the old cars running, older TV, the use of dumb phones, and certainly avoid digital ID's at all costs. The narrative is twisting and turning seemingly on a dime and it is so by design because of the confusion it creates to keep rational thought from expanding. We have all witnessed these gaslighting techniques and how well they work on around a third of the population, with another third just going along to get along. Basically they are trying to create a hell on earth that pits neighbor, relative and friend against one another so they will have complete control and will succeed if we let them. We need to simply not play their game. It is not about being a Luddite anymore, it is survival of the human race.
I was charged an extra monthly fee at our previous residence for refusing the smart meter. They make it very difficult to refuse and don’t warn you that they are changing it.
"Commissioner Littell stated: ?We have reviewed every filing, every complaint and every letter sent to this Commission regarding smart meters. Based on our review, we conclude that any CMP residential or small commercial customer should have four choices: 1) the default smart meter which will become the standard meter in CMP territory; 2) the ability to select a smart meter with the transmitter-off; 3) the ability to keep the customer?s existing analog meter; or, 4) the ability to move the new smart meters elsewhere on their property at the customer?s expense.?"
I could not find a separate document for Versant Power; so, I'm wondering if Versant would be required to adhere to the same requirements set for Central Maine Power. If that is the case, then Versant is not adhering to the same requirements set for CMP.
You might want to contact the MPUC to ask them what opt out options you should have with Versant"
Why are you asking me this question? - I opted out of having a smart meter; and, kept the analog meter I've had since 1970. So, why would I care about how smart a smart meter might be, if its transmitter is turned off? As far as I'm concerned, there will never be a smart meter attached to my house.
I think the meters are set up to be turned off if we don’t cooperate. But that’s just me…
Your cooperation isn't required for anything regarding their legal right of way to access their meter on your property. Have you read the contract that you signed to receive their service?
I signed no contract with them.
None of the criminal cabal is happy with you now that you signed the 20 gauge contract. A fine choice for home defense!
I would have fought about the meter the same as you if we were in a house and not in an apartment.
Electrical utilities see all of their customers the same.
Troubling.
Do you sign a contract with everyone that you buy anything from?
Maybe you should re-read your contract law textbook.
It is called an implied contract and it becomes law when you fail to rebut it.
Don't!
That’s not the kind of cooperation I was referring to
What kind of cooperation were you referring to?
I was talking about the act of refusing to participate in digital currency, global public health measures, and the restriction of movement putting us at risk of reprisals. Such reprisals could very well include loss of utilities until we cooperate
If you use a debit card and/or credit card, you are participating in the use of digital currency.
Loss of utilities is not a problem if you aren't reliant on them, as I am not.
I’m aware that I’ve already succumbed in the digital money scheme. 🤷🏼
I’m trying to prepare my mind for living in a tent and drinking rainwater. Not looking forward to it
Here you can refuse a meter upgrade especially when it becomes a health issue that can lead to death from cancer.
The way I have done it since 1985 is to get off the electric grid totally.
Smart meters aren't any worst than smartphones in the same proximity.
All smart appliances are the same as smartphones that never move.
What most people eat or don't eat is more carcinogenic than smart devices are.
Click.
Does it really matter why they are set up to be turned off if they are?
I'm gonna go in a little different direction. Versant provides electric transmission and distribution to approximately one third of the State of Maine's 1.3mm population. It is a regulated monopoly. It is a public utility. It offers a natural monopoly service that is considered essential. You could be off grid and that would be great, but most of us are going to have to rely on electricity coming down roads on poles and we don't want several providers of redundant service, so we grant a monopoly to one. And we oversee that with a Public Utility Commission. That's the idea and the ideal. It is very compromised and corrupt and colluded in actuality.
On top of all that, to add insult to injury, Versant is 100% owned by ENMAX, a private for profit corporation, that in turn is 100% owned by the City of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Yup, you heard that correctly. ENMAX pays a dividend to its owner, City of Calgary, or $50mm per year, as a reward.
The City of Calgary paved its sidewalks and builds its public ice arenas on profits guaranteed by the PUC of Maine for Versant.
Next month Mainers will vote on Nov 8 to force the purchase of Versant (and CMP, the dominant provider which is in turn owned in large part by the sovereign wealth funds of Norway and Qatar - recycled oil wealth) by a new cooperative entity, Our Power. This would replace the investor owned, profit at any price, abusive current utilities with a statewide consumer utility that would pay not dividends to shareholders. It would only pay bond payments based on revenues. It would replace "expensive" capital with much less expensive capital. Would it ram smart meters down customers throats? Perhaps, but probably not to the extent that CMP and Versant have been hell bent for years to install meters that many customers don't really want. Today 30% of Americans get their electricity from rural cooperatives and municipal systems. Generally, the level of customer satisfaction is higher in non investor owned grids.
The "stalking horse" of "smart" meter imposition is marginal cost reduction, and one of its fellow "horsemen" is fiduciary responsibility.
It's quite the effective trap, and ownership change is highly unlikely to slow the rollout.
Amidst all of the very good arguments about employment, privacy, safety and reliability, the root of this change is explained parsimoniously by the drive for full automation of every process with an associated cash flow stream.
It's the most sweeping and comprehensive non-military wealth transfer in history, but its origin is within military research.
from an economics standpoint, it's a death cult. When it reaches its apogee, the descent of monetary velocity within the distribution curve will bottleneck to the point of near-cessation. This is the reason why modern monetary theory is being deployed; to accommodate that bottleneck.
"Smart" meter technology is only one tiny piece of the puzzle, interlocking as it does with other automation modalities. This is not a controversial assertion; the tech industry is very open about it.
Thank you for the nuanced and layered explanation, Sam.
I refused a smart meter and then had an interesting discussion with someone from the Private Utilities Commission. She had every excuse in the book as to why I should pay to have someone read my meter every other month. I then asked her if I was also paying for all those smart meters and she was dumbstruck. I love having a brain that fires fast so that it is hard work to out-argue me!
As I read Dr. Meryl's post, i thought, but we always USED to have a meter reader come with regularity. Except on a lone island in Atlantic--too troublesome for utility guys to get there--so we send in the number on the meter.
Yes, I remember phoning in the number on the meter even in a large city. Every six-months-to-a-year they would send an actual person so it wasn't as though, if you were to lie, they wouldn't catch up with you.
I am sorry for this undue distress over a meter that is working perfectly well. (We met in SLC. Our appeal over our Smart Meter Non-Consent is now officially in the Idaho Supreme Court system. Now, waiting...hopefully, they will not review it until after Nov 1st when the winter moratorium on service termination begins. If our case is not accepted, we will be going off-grid even in the winter.)
Our company told me that I could have mine removed and pay an extra $20 to have someone come out and read the meter. I told them it is worth the $20, but it is BS that they do that.
Here in Oregon they demand $10 dollars a month, but also demand 170 dollars to put the meter back right. Even if I consented am sure they would try to force an 'almost as bad' meter on me, this is how they are rolling. My guess is they bought all the stupid meters already.
If the past three years of toxic intervention have proven anything, it's that "If it ain't broke", they can fix that for you.
They probably haven't bought any stupid meters since they started buying smart ones.
How often would they come to read the meter? How often would you have to pay the $20? I imagine once the (sheeple) majority have smart meters, they will lower the boom on the rest. But, I still try to fight it whenever I can. Sheeple may at some point wake up, hopefully, before its too late. Thank you Dr. Nass for your bravery and info to us!
Monthly. I tried to fight it but they refused to allow me to not have a smart meter without the extra fee.
Good for you.
They should rely on unemployed volunteers to physically come to your house and read your meter?
I'd be willing to call them and tell them the monthly reading.
Would you be willing to pay for your bonding?
Not sure what you mean.
They wouldn't trust you to read your ow meter if you weren't bonded by an insurance agency they could collect any loss from in court.
Of course, they wouldn't. We pay enough for them to come out and read the darn meters. People should have the choice.
First it was for only $100 you can buy a state of the art smart meter that will save.... no takers.
Then it was we’ll install it free. No takers.
Then you come home one day and there it is.
Yep, we expressly refused it in writing years ago and they came when we weren’t home and installed it anyways.
Exactly!
We ended up being pushed into it since the only solar net meters they offered were "smart." So I put a faraday cage around it. Where I live we call the electric folks the Power Nazis.
Does the faraday cage alter the reception or anything?
The signal they put out goes very far, so even when attenuated it didn't get in the way of their mission. The biggest offender is the smart meter collecting stations...
Please tell me or us more!
How did you put a faraday cage completely around it? You couldn't have disattched the meter from the house to install the cage, right? So, you've actually part of the cage on the inside wall of your house and then somehow connected to the rest of the cage on the outside of the house?
You can also get faraday cages designed to perfectly fit a router. I did. About $80 online.
An unshielded router isn't very secure.
Most likely, the faraday cage will not be complete. To be complete, it can have no electrical conduits (wires) in or out of the faraday cage. Try putting your cell phone in a completely-sealed container, like a 4" pipe nub (oil field device) with two end caps. (Careful, the seller [will] suspect you of wanting to make a bomb if you buy these things all at once.) Or, I haven't tried it, but you could try a pressure cooker with a screw sealing the vent. Just MAKE SURE THAT YOU REMOVE THE SCREW before ever trying to cook with it. THAT would be a most disastrous bomb event for you. So, again, put your cell phone in there and close it up and try to call it from another phone.
Have fun playing with a faraday cage.
We used faraday cages in neurophysiology labs to record from electrical recordings in the nervous system. These were not complete cages, made of screen, but they did reduce the electrical noise and interference.
Just curious... What nervous system were you recording from and in what manner (how?)? Was all of your recording equipment also within the faraday cage, or were you trying to isolate the nervous system from the recording equipment?
Yes, we were trying to isolate the recording equipment from the biological material being studied. The recording equipment, and anything that could possibly be outside of such a partial Faraday cage, was kept outside. Such "rigs" are designed to reduce interference and noise to levels below what was necessary to get a good signal from the experimental preparation. I have seen in other labs, where there were long-term recordings, doors made of screen that could be pulled down over the front of the preparation and the microscope.
The signal from a smart meter is identical to the signal from your cellphone, smart or not.
Sharon, Does the cage work? Have you tested the EMF penetration with a meter?
What would you gain by putting a faraday cage around something connected to the power grid?
Have you ever heard of carrier current transmissions?
Doesn't the Faraday cage prevent them from reading it?
If it's a real, functional faraday cage, no 5G should be able to penetrate or leave the cage.
Then how does the electricity get to and from the meter?
Via armored electrical cable, which has to pass through the faraday wire mesh. So, I imagine the trick is to orient the electrical wire such that any 5G exiting the cage is directed toward the ground.
The armor would have to be bonded to ground and have bypass capacitors to stop signal from leaving via the power lines. Wire mesh wouldn't work at the higher 5G frequencies. Only a solid conductor would.
I don't know. I'm not an electrical expert, which is why I opted out of a smart meter... I didn't want to have to deal with it. All my 5G in the house (router,computers) is shut off within each piece of equipment and everything is hard wired. I've a 4G flip phone...no internet capable smart phone and I'm getting a shielded case for that. I carry it in a shoulder bag, rather than in a pocket; and, at night it's downstairs and at least 40 feet from me. I'm considering painting the walls of my bedroom with a shielding paint.
Thats what I would expect
Never had a problem, installed the cages at home and at our clinic.
If the cage is not "leaking" this implies that the ELec. Company is reading them some other way
They are electronic placebos.
If it worked, it would.
Dr. Nass,
They are masters (and mistresses) of manipulative, dissembling, misdirecting dys-communication.
There are college and graduate degrees in how to exploit this terrible use of language --- it is antithetical to the concept of language and communication for civilized people. It is the language of verbal and cognitive predators. It is a Sun Tzu vision of human interaction --- and not such a sunny one too, at that.
My uninformed opinion is that they will manage power allocations during rolling blackouts and save companies money by eliminating the need to physically read the meter. As everything’s connected with the eye of Sauron, I’m guessing that the amount of electricity and its price will depend if you have been naughty or nice.
(loving the Lord of the Rings reference. ;) so appropriate.)
About six years ago, I was living in a very small town in a very remote area of the South Island of New Zealand. When I received the email notification that my analog electric meter would be replaced with a shiny, new smart one, and explaining all the "advantages" of the new one, including no more having someone come onto our property to read it, and homeowners getting access to very detailed information about our electrical use "to save money," etc. The email notification had no information on how to refuse it. So then started the long, unfruitful process of trying to stop the installation. I soon heard that others in the small town had sent certified letters refusing it, but found out one day that it had already been installed without their knowledge or consent, and then came the very long, arduous process of trying to get it removed (which didn't happen; recipients were told that a chip was removed so it (presumably) wasn't a smart meter anymore ... and so the homeowners realized that at any time in the future, the chip can be quickly installed without their knowledge or consent during a meter read).
I, too, was told via email that it would cost more (I don't recall how much more) to keep the old one. I replied that I didn't care, and I wanted written confirmation from them that a new meter (whether with smart chip or not) would not be installed, as I had heard from acquaintances that your company unethically and shamefully installed them secretly despite the homeowner refusing them in writing. I got the written confirmation after a long back and forth with the scumbags, but I didn't trust it. I had a lock installed on my meter board. The meter reader could read it still through the glass window, but not open it. I also placed a warning over the lock: "WARNING: DO NOT INSTALL A NEW METER. Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
To top it off, I helped others in the community who didn't have the means or skill to fight it (I worked part-time as a volunteer literacy tutor for ESL immigrants). I moved out of that community a few years later (and informed the purchaser of my house about the likely risk of them being approached to switch out their meter and how to fight it, providing them with information on the dangers of smart meters), and I'm ready to do it all over again when (not if) it starts here in my current tiny community.
"smart" meters have three distinct functionalities.
1. they catch fire - so sad, your house burned down and so did your neighbor's, guess you'll have to move to a 10x10 in a 15 minute prison city
2. they emit dangers levels of mitochondria-damaging EMF
3. they communicate with and potentially can shut down other IoT devices, from your phone to your "smart" toaster to the mark of the beast in your hand. ok, that last one is just if you live in sweden or work for amazon.
#WeAreAllPalestinians
I used to read electric meters back in the early 90's when the meter readers would stop by once a month and physically read each meter. The read is just like an odometer in a car in that it doesn't get reset but is simply uses the current read and they subtract the last months from it. Then "automated meters" came out. This sent into the utility a signal once a month that did essentially what the now unemployed meter reader had done for decades before. These types are NOT smart meters, but do get confused with them. Smart meters are sending constant on the fly usage information, and as often as every 15 minutes and monitors different things, such as power factor, reactive loads which is a bunch of stuff that usually costs the utility money and not the consumer. When they say it will make you more efficient, it is very likely that they will charge you more money than they did before. Also smart meters can be used to charge the customer more money for using power in peak demand times. Dumb or automated meters had no idea what hours of the day you used power, whereas smart ones do and during peak times, right around when people are cooking meals they can charge considerably more for the same KWH used.
Why they would require a meter reader to come out to read is puzzling. Automated meters have been doing this without human readers for several decades now. My guess is the utility was conflating smart meters with automated meters in order to get you to pay for something extra. You probably already had an automated meter and they are trying to gouge you for more money, all the while claiming efficiency is saving you money which it isn't. It is saving them money while charging you more.
can you please explain the difference between an 'automated' meter and an analog meter. can the old style analog meter be converted into an automated one? or would it be an entirely newer device? asking because though I know for a fact that we have an analog meter (with the clock-like dials), I have not noticed any person actually coming to 'read' it for several years now. ours is on the back of the house and they used to walk into our yard.
I'm going by what I knew 30 years ago when the utility I worked for was just starting to roll out automated meters. To answer your question, they can and do convert regular analog meters into automated. They are still analog (mechanical) but the device they install inside the meter housing converts that read to digital so it can be transmitted over the powerline to the utility's computer. I know that they would make the conversion in their meter shop and then swap them out.
The term digital can be confused with analog meters that had numbers read like an older car's odometer. Other analog meters like you described had 5 dials that would point to numbers laid out like a clock. When I think of digital, it's probably not mechanical but something computerized and uses binary. Any meter without moving parts would be digital.
Also something needs to be said about "estimated" usage readings. Sometimes utilities couldn't send a meter reader out for 2 or more months due to any number of things, usually weather. So they would estimate the usage based on the read from the previous month, or the same month of the previous year. Then when the meter reader did make it out to read, any error in the reading would be corrected automatically. It is not that they were just guessing and charging. The true accurate reading, since it doesn't reset will always come out in the wash whenever the meter reader does come out.
thank you for that great level of detail. I have seen the kinds that look like an odometer also. we have one at our summer cabin.
so is it safe to say then that if a meter has moving parts that are obvious, it cannot be a 'smart' meter?
I'm many years out of date but I believe the smart meters won't have moving parts. Did a few searches on smart meters and found that while they look a little like the old meters, they have a LCD readout, and nothing spinning. Also I could tell the sites I looked at were industry paid for, and were trying to sell their meters using very misleading information. Judging from what they are saying about them it sounds very similar to other propaganda we have been exposed to in the past couple years. I think these meters are bad news for anyone concerned by the constant intrusion of tech into our lives. Another thing, having the ability to shut off your power remotely by the authorities in mass without sending anyone out has dystopian uses. Imagine going to a protest rally and having a camera id you with facial recognition and then by the time you get home your power is dead, and all ran by some AI monstrosity. This is all closer than we would like to imagine. Think of an EV that has a kill switch that can be thrown remotely, via satellite, 5G etc and from another country even. It can easily be used as another tool in the creation of a neo-feudal state we are racing towards.
thanks for your input. totally agree about the implications. sad how many non-critical thinkers can so easily call us all some kind of Luddites who reject technology. they don't see the difference between tech as a tool as opposed to a weapon.
Well said. Any tech that can be operated remotely can be targeted to shut down descent is in this day and age a weapon that can and will be used to shut off our means of survival. We got a glimpse of what they can do in Canada and the trucker rally and how they shut off bank accounts, canceled insurance, put people in some cases put families out on the street, all without their day in court. That weapon was crude in comparison to what the new things will be such as smart meters to instantly shut off your heat, cookstove, lights and refrigeration. Or CBDC's that can shut off your funds, or simply limit them. And these things can be applied to the general population simply to lock down everyone, when their car won't budge or the electricity needs to be shut off for several hours a day for fake climate change "emergencies". We all need to avoid smart devices as much as we are able. Keep the old cars running, older TV, the use of dumb phones, and certainly avoid digital ID's at all costs. The narrative is twisting and turning seemingly on a dime and it is so by design because of the confusion it creates to keep rational thought from expanding. We have all witnessed these gaslighting techniques and how well they work on around a third of the population, with another third just going along to get along. Basically they are trying to create a hell on earth that pits neighbor, relative and friend against one another so they will have complete control and will succeed if we let them. We need to simply not play their game. It is not about being a Luddite anymore, it is survival of the human race.
I was charged an extra monthly fee at our previous residence for refusing the smart meter. They make it very difficult to refuse and don’t warn you that they are changing it.
A widespread awareness of the dangers and unknowns of EMF - dirty electricity - and other sources of radiation is needed.
If not on the organs, but the cells and organelles like mitochondria
Where a number of findings indicate measurable changes to function and gene expression.
https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Electricity-Electrification-Diseases-Civilization/dp/193890818X
Meryl,
The MPUC set its opt out requirements for CMP on 5/17/2011 in the following document:
MPUC Decides Smart Meter Investigation
https://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=puc-pressreleases&id=245859&v=article088
"Commissioner Littell stated: ?We have reviewed every filing, every complaint and every letter sent to this Commission regarding smart meters. Based on our review, we conclude that any CMP residential or small commercial customer should have four choices: 1) the default smart meter which will become the standard meter in CMP territory; 2) the ability to select a smart meter with the transmitter-off; 3) the ability to keep the customer?s existing analog meter; or, 4) the ability to move the new smart meters elsewhere on their property at the customer?s expense.?"
I could not find a separate document for Versant Power; so, I'm wondering if Versant would be required to adhere to the same requirements set for Central Maine Power. If that is the case, then Versant is not adhering to the same requirements set for CMP.
You might want to contact the MPUC to ask them what opt out options you should have with Versant"
https://www.maine.gov/mpuc/about/contact
How smart can a smart meter be with its transmitter turned off?
Why are you asking me this question? - I opted out of having a smart meter; and, kept the analog meter I've had since 1970. So, why would I care about how smart a smart meter might be, if its transmitter is turned off? As far as I'm concerned, there will never be a smart meter attached to my house.
I haven't had any kind of electric meter since 1985 when I left the grid.
Yes, I understand that.