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We probably haven’t dedicated enough space to one of the trendiest items for politicians/business people trying to promote clean energy and energy efficiency: the smart grid and smart meters. Probably because we think they’re a bit overrated, a fact we hit on in our post “Smart Grid – Who benefits most, utilities or customers“. This thought was reinforced in our post “Living with a smart meter” where we chronicled Gary Hart’s observations about his life with a PG&E installed smart meter.
Aside from the fact of how useful smart meters are to utility customers, what about something more important: the safety of smart meters. There is at least one smart grid safety documentary and a blog titled Stop Smart Meters that don’t think they’re safe.
The Electric Power Research Institute researched the safety of smart meters last year and they were pretty clear that they’re evaluation found that radiation from smart meters fell well below the FCC limits on radiation:
The EPRI research addressed RF from a specific type of smart meter with measurements conducted at the manufacturer’s test facility. For a continuously-operating rack of 10 meters, each operating at a nominal power rating of 250 milliwatts (typical of many residential units), the RF power density level 1 foot in front of the rack was 8 percent of the FCC limit; at 20 and 50 feet, these values dropped to 0.18 and 0.11 percent, respectively. From 8 inches behind the rack, RF power density was 0.6 percent of the FCC limit.
Notice that their report said “8 percent of“, not “8 percent over”.
According to a Grist article on the safety of smart meters, the radiation from a cellphone at your ear is 1000 micro-watts/cm^2! Almost 5 times the maximum level that the Stop Smart Meter film links to in a research PDF. So why aren’t these documentaries focusing on cell phones instead of smart meters? I guess all these people worried about smart meters don’t use cell phones.
While I’m not sure if smart meters actually help customers save energy, I wouldn’t be worried about the safety of a smart meter if I had one on my home. I’d be more worried about fossil fuel power pollution. When researching this issue for yourself, I would be wary about looking at numbers of radiation that aren’t compared to other sources of radiation that we live with in our daily lives. Also, keep in mind that you should only be concerned with the radiation you would receive from a smart meter while living in your home, not 1 meter in front of the meter. How often have you stood right in front of your existing meter? What about the amount of time you spend with a cell phone inches from your brain!
What are your thoughts?
Yes – smart meters are safe (or at least of much lower risk that many everyday activities). There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of actual harm from the levels of EM produced by smart meters.
Comparisons with cell phones, or with wifi routers, probably won’t convince certain people of their safety though. There are people that claim sensitivity to radio waves – and at least some of those people do have a consistent story – they refuse to use cell phones or have wifi in their houses. I don’t know if anyone with such a claimed sensitivity to EM has undergone any rigorous tests to confirm their self diagnosis.
Some pieces of the government are playing along with this. San Francisco recently passed an ordinance requiring cell phones (or perhaps their packaging) to be labelled with relative EM radiation levels … so that consumers could make “informed choices” when buying. It isn’t clear how informed those choices would be because there seem to be huge variations in actual radiation from the cell phone – depending on how much signal it thinks it needs to make a good connection to the local cell tower.
SMART METERS AND HUMAN BIOLOGY DAMAGE LINKED
Laboratory Observations in U.S. & Europe Show Smart Meter Radiation Damage to Human Biology.
(1) Human Cell Damage
(2) DNA Chain Breaks
(3) Breaches In The Blood-brain barrier
from Smart Meter Radiation at levels considerably lower than emitted by smart meters.
But sheep and parrots continue to follow and repeat industry propaganda pretending safety, similar to the cigarette safety propaganda delivered to the public for almost 100 years.
THE SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, STATE OF CALIFORNIA HEALTH DEPARTMENT IN JANUARY 2012 finally completed a report on Smart Meter Health Effects.
- Smart meters expose persons in the home to FULL BODY RADIATION EXPOSURES 50 to 450 times greater radiation than cell phones depending on proximity in the home to the smart meter attached to outside wall.
- Smart meters emit radiation almost continuously throughout the day 24/7, 365 days per year.
- Increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier in the head, harmful effects on sperm, double strand breaks in DNA which could lead to cancer genesis, stress gene activation indicating exposure to a toxin, and alterations in brain glucose metabolism.
- Electro Hypersensitivity is a real and sometimes debilitating problem for the affected persons.
- FCC guidelines are irrelevant and cannot be used for any claims of Smart Meter safety unless heat damage is involved.
Utility company claims of “No proof” of illness were mathematical misrepresentations because no illness link is proved at 100%. Instead, “Overwhelming evidence” is used to determine likelihood of illness and “Overwhelming evidence” does exist regarding smart meters.
Robert, Can you please provide the links to these studies so people can check them out?
Our utility in Maine (Central Maine Power) has an excellent FAQ about smart meters that debunks a lot of the concerns:
http://www.cmpco.com/smartmeter/
They also have an excellent infographic page as a pdf document created by a Princeton PhD:
http://www.cmpco.com/MediaLibrary/3/6/Content%20Management/YourAccount/PDFs%20and%20Docs/RF_FactSheet_web.pdf
Anyone who reads through this information will quickly realize that smart meters produce such a tiny amount of RF energy that it is barely measurable compared to cell phones. Even the human body radiates 20 times as much RF as a smart meter for heavens sake!
Smart meters have been in place in the Seattle metro area (specifically Puget Sound Energy’s million plus customers) for over a decade now. And guess what? We haven’t seen a single statistical drop in public health over that time, and zero cases of related or indirect health issues.
If a million+ people, over a decade, isn’t enough of a sample size to show that smart meters aren’t dangerous, then you should readjust your tinfoil hat.
The other thing to keep in mind when reading about these power density numbers is whether they are time-averaged or not. A very short pulse may have a fair bit of intensity to it; averaged over 24h it may be very little.
I’m no expert in this field, and I don’t know about the physiological response for shorter/higher energy vs. longer / lower energy, etc, but you need to know what you’re reading to be able to make apples::apples comparisons.
I do have some mild concerns about all the RF in our lives, but I don’t put “smart meters” very high on that list – I, too, think more about the cell phone pressed against my skull (and the wireless laptop on my … lap).
I think sometimes the RF argument is used as a proxy for other concerns. “I >want< a cell phone, so that RF is fine. I had no choice about a smart meter, so that (much smaller) RF is unacceptable!" … or something like that.
Eric, I think your last 2 sentences hit the nail on the head. People don’t have a choice (and I’m not saying they should if it’s safe) so they are upset about it. If they really want to opt out, they could always cancel their electric service and install solar on their roof to a battery bank.
Regarding the option to opt-out, the state of Maine (where I live) is currently deploying smart meters. Opponents have forced an option to opt-out, and I recently received the mailing from our utility offering two options for opting out. Option A is a smart meter that emits no radio signal, however there is a one-time installation charge of $20 plus a monthly charge of $10 for manual meter reading every two months. Option B is a new electromechanical meter with a one-time installation charge of $40 plus a monthly charge of $12, again this will be read manually every two months.
Since Maine is a very rural state with a population of just over 1,000,000 people, there is an extraordinary amount of vehicle mileage involved in reading our meters. This is a state where smart meters will save a truly significant amount of fossil fuel and labor.
The feature that I like most about smart meters is that the utility company will know immediately when there is a power outage and can focus their energies accordingly without requiring customers to call in to report an outage during a storm. They will also be deploying user webpages showing power consumption eventually. Users who can view their electrical consumption graphically are often able to reduce their consumption by up to 20%. Another major benefit of smart meters.
COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT REPORT ON SMART METERS
Again, here is the Santa Cruz County, State of California Health Department Report on Smart Meters (statements, not all 11 pages). Because smart meters are relatively new in the U.S., I believe this report to be the FIRST by a public health department in the U.S. on specifically smart meters.
- Smart meters expose persons in the home to FULL BODY RADIATION EXPOSURES 50 to 450 times greater radiation than cell phones depending on proximity in the home to the smart meter attached to outside wall.
- Smart meters emit radiation almost continuously throughout the day 24/7, 365 days per year.
- Increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier in the head, harmful effects on sperm, double strand breaks in DNA which could lead to cancer genesis, stress gene activation indicating exposure to a toxin, and alterations in brain glucose metabolism.
- Electro Hypersensitivity is a real and sometimes debilitating problem for the affected persons.
- FCC guidelines are irrelevant and cannot be used for any claims of Smart Meter safety unless heat damage is involved.
- Smart meter exposure is Involuntary exposure. Governmental agencies for protecting public health and safety should be much more vigilant towards involuntary environmental exposures because governmental agencies are the only defense against such involuntary exposure.
I don’t know Seattle, but in California the PG$E utility company Director of Smart Meters (William Devereaux) had to resign over dishonesty issues related to shilling on websites, and the CEO of PG$E was terminated for the damage and deaths to customers in San Bruno and other areas he caused due to his irresponsibility and lack of attention to their safety.
A number of comments on this sight sound almost identical to the utility company shills that were used in California.
This link has PDF’s of the Santa Cruz report: http://lamesa.patch.com/blog_posts/california-health-department-cites-smart-meter-health-risks-in-report
Why do you post essentially the same comment twice?
It’d be good for you to include references to studies you cite in your comments, rather than simply making the statements (as Chris asked before).
here’s a direct link to the pdfs:
http://sccounty01.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/bds/Govstream/BDSvData/non_legacy/agendas/2012/20120124/PDF/041.pdf
It’s worth reading, IMHO – more informative than blog comments.
and p.s. no, I’m not an “industry shill.”
Actually RobertWilliams I don’t see anything in that document which backs up your assertions. Googling some of those phrases leads only to your reposting of the same comment elsewhere.
Citations, please? If you can’t I’m not inclined to give those bullet items much weight. If you can, I’m interested.
Meh, last comment. I see that Attachment B of the PDF Chris & I pointed at contains some citations of works which refer to some of the items you mention. There are other assertions in there which aren’t backed up but merely stated, such as that the smart meters run at a 100% duty cycle.
Hydro and their installation company Corix, need to be stopped! I fear some elderly couple or handycapped
persons may become victoms of a poorly installed SmartMeter that has decided to overheat and burn their
home down! To desturb an old analogue meter, that may have oxidized pins and, try to connect a new unit
with new pins, without proper replacement of all old connecting hardware is asking for trouble! If you have resistance
and arcing due to corrosion, it may get hot enough to melt insulation/plastic etc (house fire) This may not
be the meters fault or the house wiring, but how these meters are being installed! I understand, these meters
are being changed, even if the home owners are not in attendance! Hey folks, the guys doing the installation,
are they certified electricians? What about house insurance issues? Correct me if wrong, but do we not have to
hire a certified electrician for any work that involves 240 vac in the breaker box or power mains areas?
Damage to appilances, the smartmeter, or both could result! I believe this technology
to be flawed! If that is believed incorrect, then prove why the appliance damage, house fires and people
getting sick in Ontario, Austrailia, and all over the United States! Oh yes, I have noticed a lot of house
fires recently!
Also, what about the interference to other electronics, and licenced users of this band of frequencies
(902 mhz to 928mhz) chosen for SmartMeter operation. It is my understanding that Hydros use of this band is unlicenced! How can they
not interfere with all others on this band, when the SmartMeter uses a frequency hopping system!
This means, that a SmartMeter signal hops all over the band and, since the average home electronics
has a very broadband receiver, interference cannot be avoided! The 900 mhz transmitter in these
smartmeters is 1 watt output power and, for comparison, the average home wireless router is less
than 1/10 th of that!
On the topic of interference, the internal SmartMeter power supply may be genereating lots of interference called hash!
This can cause am radios and many other home devices to work poorly or not at all!
I believe this power supply to be called a switching power supply and, they are famous for interference!
That interference will travel all over your house wiring and, over the air for a distance!
If we let Hydro continue, this will only be the start of problems! When the SmartMeter is installed, the 900 mhz
transceiver is operating and, a 2.4 Ghz (gigaherz) transceiver is not activated, but contained within every meter!
At some not to distant time, that 2.4 ghz transceiver will be used to communicate with other smart devices
in the home and, possibly a gas meter transceiver! A water meter transceiver will also communicate via 2.4ghz!
Hydro’ estimated transmit time daily is only in part! These meters have an antenna inside the meter container
for 900 mhz, 2.4ghz and possibly a cellular freq! Because stationary or moving objects may prevent communication
between the meter and collection point, your neighbours meter will relay the signal and that will happen untill it is received by that same collection point! I am not sure how many homes to a collection point in Canada, but some places in the States are 500 to 700 homes to one collection point!
How could a SmartMeter only transmit for a minute a day if relaying other meter info, sending that meters info,
sending beacon signals, communicating with gas/water devices and, communicating with smart device equiped
home appilances
A concerned B.C. Canada homeowner
Here’s a great video report that debunks the anti-smartmeter theories:
http://youtu.be/4d4FEngu4p4
We have smart meters for both electricity and natural gas. The gas one is interesting because it can’t pull power from the grid to run its radio transmitter. Instead it has to rely on internal batteries. The unit is very small, so there isn’t space for more than the equivalent of a few “AA” sized batteries. These smart meters are spec’d to run for several years before needing a battery replacement – so they clearly can’t be transmitting 24×7, or they’d run out of juice in a matter of days.
190,000 RADIATION TRANSMISSIONS PER DAY
PG$E, Northern California’s Utility Monopoly, recently admitted that each electric smart meter transmits radiation 10′s of thousands of times, up to 190,000 times each day.
This corrects previous false statements repeated often by utility companies across the country.
Robert, if you are making these claims, PLEASE post a link validating them. Is the radiation harmful to humans? We are subject to radiation from thousands of things in our daily life. These claims are great for fear mongering, but is there any validity to them. Nobody can tell because you don’t provide enough scientific background or source for your claim.
That is a number representing a theoretical maximum (at 99.9 percentile) – pulling it out of context and using it as typical is bad science, to say the least.
It seems to me that there are 2 types of people involved in this dialog about smart meters. People with science and engineering backgrounds (like me) that understand that there is very little chance of there being any reasonable concern. And the alarmists who do not have any credible science or technology knowledge that are content to repeat disinformation while refusing to learn enough about RF energy and the devices in question. Willful ignorance and paranoia do not yield credible arguments.
Again I refer all readers to this excellent infographic:
http://www.cmpco.com/MediaLibrary/3/6/Content%20Management/YourAccount/PDFs%20and%20Docs/RF_FactSheet_web.pdf
Guy, great point as always. It is alarmists without science background that give all of energy topics a bad name. Of course, you can see an extravagant abundance of a lack of science background in the comments on our HoJo motor post.
Well put, Guy! I particularly like the comment about “willful ignorance”.
Chris,
I have personally seen the lab observations (CELL DAMAGE, DNA Chain Breaks) of non-ionizing radiation on human cells in test tubes and on laboratory rats (Breaches in the blood-brain barrier) at levels considerably lower than emitted by smart meters.
I have also read over 400 peer reviewed articles, (hard copies in a private library), about half and half industry sponsored, independently done.
It does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that the Telecommunication act of 1996 was passed to disqualify valid health related challenges to the placement of cell towers, and industry supported science is orchestrated to diffuse independent research conclusions and confuse policy makers who have never understood the proper use and application of statistics.
The PG$E admission of “Up to 190,000 radiation transmissions per day” was delivered to a judge at the PUC and is in pdf form, which I cannot attach here, but it is on page 5 of the document: PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY’S RESPONSE TO ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE’S OCTOBER 18, 2011 RULING DIRECTING IT TO FILE CLARIFYING RADIO FREQUENCY INFORMATION. You should be able to access that from the California PUC.
The Santa Cruz County Health Department Smart Meter Health Report has recently been posted and can now be accessed at
http://emfsafetynetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Health-Risks-Associated-With-SmartMeters.pdf
(You will need to know how to apply inverse square relationship to fully determine ranges of exposure rather than only point exposures given.)
I will give you some SHORT video links in my next comment that are more appropriate for these limited depth comment sections.
I hope this helps.
Best,
RW
SMART METER HEALTH PROBLEMS AND CANCER.
1. SMART METERS – 100 TIMES MORE RADIATION THAN CELL PHONES. Video Interview: Nuclear Scientist, Daniel Hirsch, (5 minutes)
http://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/04/20/daniel-hirsch-on-ccsts-fuzzy-math/
2. SMART METERS – CANCER, NERVOUS SYSTEM DAMAGE, ADVERSE REPRODUCTION AFFECTS. Video Interview: Dr. Carpenter, New York Public Health Department, Dean of Public Health, (2 minutes)
http://emfsafetynetwork.org/?p=39461
3. The NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE Calls for Halt To Smart Meters in Homes and Schools.
http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/halt-smart-meters/
4. The WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION May 31 2011 placed the Non-ionizing radiation coming from Wireless Smart Meters (& some other wireless devices) on the Class 2-B CARCINOGEN LIST.
http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
5. The NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH Feb 2011 found biological changes in the brain after only minutes of exposure to non-ionizing radiation.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/8/808.abstract
6. LABORATORY SCIENTISTS have observed
(1) Human Cell Damage
(2) DNA Chain Breaks
(3) Breaches in the Blood-Brain Barrier
from levels of non-ionizing radiation lower than emitted by WIRELESS Smart meters.
http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/cc-video/
7. INSURANCE COMPANIES won’t insure smart meters due to biological damage seen by scientists they hired. TV Video (3 minutes)
http://eon3emfblog.net/?p=382
Cell Phone use and other devices are Voluntary and can be shut off at the user’s discretion, but Smart meters mounted on homes are emitting radiation 24/7 and can not be shut off.
PG$E, California’s Utility Monopoly, recently admitted that each smart meter transmits radiation between 10,000 & 190,000 times each day.
This corrects previous false statements repeated often by utility companies across the country.
NOTE: many of the tests on non-ionizing radiation (the type of radiation emitted by smart meters) have been done using devices other than smart meters because smart meters have only been in people’s homes for a very short time.
But as a Wireless smart meter emits 100 times more radiation than a cell phone, it is not difficult to project. If a machine gun (smart meter) fires 100 bullets in the same time that a pistol (cell phone) fires one bullet, it is not difficult to project the harm that the machine gun can do, even if the tests were done with the pistol.