What is a “Smart Meter”?
A “Smart Meter” is a device attached to your residence which monitors the amount of a utility being used by the home or apartment and transmits by radio wave to the utility supplier the details of the amount of the specific utility consumed by the minute, hour, day, week, month and year. The utility could be electricity, gas, water, cable service or garbage. The meter is a two-way communications device and can send consumption information (to the utility) and receive information and commands (from the utility).
What is a “Smart Grid”?
A “Smart Grid is what the environmentalists, Obama, and government thinks we will have when everyone is hooked up to a “Smart Meter”.
Smart Meter Benefits (per the utilities and government)
- Users of the utilities will now be able to know exactly how much of the specific utility they are using and when they use it. (costs for peak periods will be higher than for non peak periods)
- elimination of utility meter reading employees, saving costs.
- installation of Smart Meters will create new “green jobs”
- Reward consumers when they use utilities in off-peak periods. (electricity at night for example)
Smart Meter Disadvantages
- Consumer Privacy
- Will allow suppliers (big brother – government) to automatically by remote control turn off or limit the specific utility if demand exceeds supply.
- Loss of personal freedom of choice
- Higher rates could be imposed at peak usage times.
- Cost of the Smart Meters passed on to consumers. This is happening because federally mandated use of meters is being paid for by the U S Taxpayers (the Obama government – you and me) and the utility consumers, you and me.
- elimination of meter readers will eliminate permanent jobs
- the installation of “Smart Meters” will create temporary jobs, not permanent (the government “green” job creation story is a myth)
Conclusion
According to the Obama administration, “Smart Meters” are at the center of their $8 billion push to update the US electricity grid.” The fact is, Smart Meters” have nothing to do with the US energy grid. The ‘GRID” is the physical plant and system that transmits energy from where it is produced to where it is consumed. In short, smart meters:
- should reduce energy costs if the meter reading costs are passed through to the consumer,
- will create the opportunity for “big brother” to completely control our use of our utilities
- is an enormous waste of government spending of taxpayer money with this “make work” $8 billion expenditure
- will benefit General Electric who manufactures “Smart Meters”. In 2009, the Obama administration bailed out an almost bankrupt General Electric with $80 billion or 25% of the total available TARP loans. Not only was GE, (the largest industrial company in the US) the largest recipient of the Obama rescue program, but Chairman Jeffrey Immelt, did not have to worry about Obama’s Compensation Czar restricting pay checks to executives whose companies received TARP funds. GE owns the far left and liberal news networks, NBC and MSNBC. Turn on NBC and MSNBC and listen to their news broadcasts. They do not broadcast news; they broadcast OPINION; and that OPINION is as far to te left as you can get. If you haven’t noticed, the Obama administration is also as farther to the left than the chart goes. Could it be, that part of this “Smart Meter”, $8 billion expenditure is another payback to GE for their political support through NBC and MSNBC?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR2009062802955.html
Southern California Edison is spending $1.63 billion (partly from the Obama $8 billion) for 5.3 million Smart Meters between 2009 and 2012. That works out to $308 per Smart Meter”. We at America-Wake-Up believe that the tax payers of the US would be better served if the government did not spend this $8 billion. The country is bankrupt; and can not afford wasteful spending like this and hundreds of other similar extravagant spending programs.
We think this idea of a Smart Grid and Smart Meters is one of the results of the Obama administration knowingly implementing policies which will limit the supply of electricity, gas and water, thus creating shortages. Obama and his energy Czar are willfully creating energy shortages by not taking actions to reduce and eliminate our dependence on foreign sources of energy and not facilitating:
- the construction of new nuclear power plants,
- offshore drilling
- oil shale and tar sands development
- liquid natural gas facilities
- clean coal energy production
The US has 5 times the hydorcarbon energy sources than the middle east; yet Obama and the environmentalists oppose anything to do with increasing nuclear and hydrocarbon production and are only pushing “green” renewable solar, wind and wave energy projects which we are all in favor of but will NEVER replace nuclear and hydrocarbon energy production which are 100% essential to run our economy.
Thus, the government is creating a problem (the shortage of domestic energy) and then they create a “feel good” solution which is the need for a Smart Meter” so the “government ” can “help” us around the shortage, by spending more of our tax money for unnecessary projects. Just what we need: “MORE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE”.
We do not think people need to be told how to conserve energy. If one wants to save energy you turn the lights off and the heater down. You do not need to go and read a meter to see what your current consumption is to save and conserve. We think it makes a lot of sense to eliminate the cost of meter readers and that this cost should be passed on to the consumer.
With the environmentalists and the government pushing for “electric cars” and the elimination of the gasoline engine in the car, in the near future, the demand for electricity during the night (everyone charging their electric car) could exceed day time demand and really create a supply / demand NIGHTMARE.
The height of the “Smart Meter” folly is in Great Britain where they have “Smart Meters” on their garbage cans to measure the amount of waste that is recycled, in an effort to increase recycling.
Smart Meters in The United Kingdom article is below:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6292809/Smart-meters-could-be-spy-in-the-home.html
Obama wants 40 million smart meters by 2015. That is another $12.4 trillion in potential sales for General Electric.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2009/12/biden-tells-obama-that-40-million-us-homes-will-have-smart-meters-by-2015-/1
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