‘Smart’ Meters are ‘Guilt Meters’ and an Example of a ‘Fraudulent, Bogus Innovation’

bron: smartgridawareness.org/2015/12/01/smart-meters-are-guilt-meters-and-bogus-innovation/
1 dec. 2015

by K.T. Weaver, SkyVision Solutions

At this website we have categorized the various risks related to utility smart meters, including health, privacy invasions, cyber threats, increased risk of fires, inaccuracy in billing, and environmental impacts. In addition, we have shown that smart meters provide no net economic benefits to consumers and in fact are subject to accelerated technological obsolescence. Governments, utilities, and other members of the smart grid industry skew business case assumptions in an attempt to show them “economical.” For example, they usually assume smart meters will be used and useful for 20 years when a 5 to 7 year lifetime is more likely.

In some instances, the business case assumptions used to justify smart meters are not publicly disclosed. The figure at the left is symbolic of the “transparency” of the smart meter program where the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), in response to a Freedom of Information type request, redacted approximately 13 of 20 pages of its document showing that smart meters are cost-effective, leaving mostly title pages and signatures. 1

Despite the now overwhelming evidence that smart meters are a colossal waste of money and resources, smart meter deployments continue world-wide. There have been a few recent push backs as reported in Indiana, New Hampshire, and New York. In general, however, it is as if the smart meter proponents live in an alternate reality devoid of facts and rationality. Why is that? In this article I will provide rarely discussed details on why the irrational and wasteful smart meter deployments continue.

Insight is provided by a paper 2 I came across from 2012 where James Woudhuysen described smart meters as “guilt meters” and a “fraudulent” and “bogus innovation.”

Nothing New, ‘Smart,” or Innovative About Smart Meters

In the past several months the prices for oil and gasoline for our cars have dramatically dropped, maybe down as much as 50%. Is your electric bill going down also? Isn’t the price of energy going down? Not if you are paying for smart meter installations and the phase-out of fossil fueled plants and an increase in the use of expensive, yet subsidized “unsustainable” wind farms and current solar panel technology which will never have a significant impact on the reduction of carbon emissions.

The “smartness” being promoted by governments in collusion with climate alarmists and the smart grid industry has nothing to do with innovative technology, but instead, it has to do with penalizing our past behaviors and old ways of doing business as “dumb and stupid.” As stated by James Woudhuysen:

“It is implied that mankind has been ‘dumb’ in its past conduct. It is suggested, however, that modern technology, in the shape of IT Information Technology, can now compensate for humanity’s profligate ways and help it manage demand down; especially demand for energy.”

“Smart meters are not, then, smart in terms of helping consumers adjust their use of electricity and gas to take advantage of times when these two things are cheap. Nor are such meters smart in the sense of bringing about a significant reduction in energy use. According to the project leader of the Centre for Studies on Sustainable Development at the Free University of Brussels, Grégoire Wallenborn, European studies have shown that consumers using energy monitors in the home cut their use by no more than four per cent, and that, only over the first year after their meters were installed.”

“Those who make and research energy need to satirise smart meters, pointing out that mendacious and false symbols of innovation can never amount to the real thing''

What should be promoted is truly innovative ways to increase the supply of environmentally friendly energy rather than castigating the consumer for using too much energy and prolonging the continued wasteful investment in low-tech solutions such as smart meters, weatherization programs, and subsidies for existing energy sources. Through increased research and development over the past few years, we could have already had real and practical solutions to our future energy needs. But as stated by James Woudhuysen in a separate article 3:

“For many today, both green activists and leading politicians, climate change is a moral and political issue rather than simply a practical problem. They see the ‘issue of climate change’ as a means to changing people’s behaviour and expectations, rather than simply as a byproduct of industrialisation that ought to be tackled by technological know-how.”

“The implication is that humans must first suffer, by cutting back on consumption and energy-use, before we can at least try to fix the problems of pollution.”

Zie verder de link bovenaan.



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