Mr. Big - Edicts from the Mountain
The newspaper in Idaho Falls, ID is the Post Register. Yesterday they had an editorial written by a member of City Council. Apparently, he is a quasi-staff member because the Register allows him a bully pulpit on a regular basis. I found that out when I wrote a response to an editorial he wrote and I requested equal space.
I received an answer by email from the Post Register inviting me to submit a 250 word response even though I live out of the area (70 miles down the road). I said 'No thanks, I'll just publish it on my website. So here it is... with my response below:
Ed Marohn - Guest column on Smart Meters:
Those who refuse to convert to smart meters should pay for the added costs of clinging to an archaic system, writes Ed Marohn.
By Ed Marohn
Idaho Falls Power has already installed AMI meters (smart meters) with
more than 60 percent of its electric customers. The goal is 100 percent
by year’s end. When the project was planned years ago, previous City
Councils faced three choices for implementing AMI meters:
• Option 1: Per
Idaho Falls City Code 8-5-11, the city owns the meter and has installed
the meter of its
choice for more than 100 years. Under this option, failure to accept the
AMI meter (smart
meter) results in termination of the electric service.
Nationally most cities have implemented this option. No AMI meter
installation, no electric
service to the customer.
• Option 2:
Disable the communication device in the AMI meter, which eliminates the
ability to transmit
data wirelessly for opt-out customers.
• Option 3:
Retain the older, electromechanical meter at opt-out locations.
In Idaho Falls, a
few people have opposed installation of smart meters for various
reasons. As a result, Idaho Falls Power officials have been working
slowly to get implementation to 100 percent by allowing opt outs
temporarily while the utility addresses their concerns.
Option 1 for
complete conversion to the AMI meter is best for the city and its
citizens in terms of cost savings from lower utility rates and taxes.
With full system upgrades to smart meters, projected hard savings to the
city are more than $600,000 annually. Opt-out customers erode these
savings for the rest of Idaho Falls’ residences and business.
Smart meter
benefits to electric customers are multiple: automated meter reading and
management (reduces city overhead - no person is needed to manually read
the meter); instant outage visibility for Idaho Falls Power to manage
electrical flow to customers; avoids inventory cost from maintaining
outdated and no longer manufactured electromechanical meters of the
1960s; and allows many power issues to be resolved electronically
without dispatching Idaho Falls Power employees.
Options two and
three will mean added costs because a person is needed to read meters
manually. This means manning costs and equipment costs for the citizens
of Idaho Falls.
Who will bear the
additional cost to have another person or persons drive around town to
read the opt outs, which comprise less than one percent of the
population?
Who will bear the
costs for separate data keeping and billing, since the AMI data will be
disconnected?
Who will pay for
the added inventory of storing outdated electromechanical meters?
Who will pay for
dispatching employees to remedy opt-out customers’ problems when this
could have been done
electronically
had they converted to smart meters?
The choice in our
free enterprises system is easy. Those causing the additional costs pay
for them through extra fees. The majority of Idaho Falls citizens should
not be penalized financially due to these opt outs.
The Response that won't be published:
Editor,
Mr. Fortune 500, Ed Marohn’s letter on smart meters demands response. The smart
meter is a computerized gateway device that attaches the home to the smart grid.
The smart grid is an Information Technology system that is an overlay on top of
the electric transmission and distribution system. The IT systems – hardware and
software are additional overhead costs that make the costs of meter reading look
like petty cash. By way of example, you can buy 3 meter readers for the price of
1 computer programmer. The alleged savings to be achieved by smart meters are
illusory. Another way to think of it is – the income from three families is
being transferred to one person.
The contract that the city had to provide electricity was a
standard contract the same across the country. The metering of electricity was
to measure the total amount used - period. The obligation of the customer was to
pay for the total amount used - period. A new contract imposed on one of the
parties by extortion – which is what is happening with the smart meters is
unlawful. It is also unconstitutional because the smart meter is a
communications device that records the moment by moment usage of electricity
which implicitely is revealing of activity within the home. That makes it de
facto, a surveillance device – 24/7 unlawful wiretap on the home in violation of
the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
The smart meter was designed as a commercial device to measure the infeeding of
electricity to the electric transmission grid as well as the use of electricity.
The electric transmission grid is under a separate – and international,
“self-governance” system of “electric reliability” (See North American Energy
Reliability Council (NERC)). Most homes will never infeed electricity to the
grid but the presence of the meter on the home creates regulatory ambiguity.
Does the presence of the Smart Meter on your home draw you into commerce – and
therefore subject to regulatory control? That’s an issue that will have to be
decided by a court but it seems pretty clear that this is the intent based on
all of the literature on Smart Grid.
All you have to do to verify that is to search on the terms “demand management”
– and “shave the peak”. Demand Management means that they intend to manage your
use of electricity within your home. Shaving the Peak means that they will
curtail your use of electricity if they feel like it. Anybody who doubts that
should go to the Library of Congress website (THOMAS), find the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 and read it. And after you do that, if you
are not appalled, then you’re not a red-blooded American worthy of the name.
This idea that everything has to be embedded with technology is propaganda
brought to you by the people who profit from it. Technology has it’s place but
that doesn’t mean everyplace. Technology doesn’t necessarily make things better.
It does make things cost more, and it opens us up a wide variety of
vulnerabilities that didn’t exist before and it provides the capability for
control over human activity that has never been available before in the entire
history of mankind. Technology is a tool and a weapon at the same time and the
use of it should be judicious when it comes to “societal level systems”.
Finally, instead of talking about “user fees” that amount to a penalty for not
acquiesing to extortion and unconstitutional wiretapping, we should talk about
the price that needs to be paid to the American people for the wholesale
corporate takeover of our government. There will be a price to be paid – but it
won’t be in money. There is name for this type of “public-private” governance.
It’s called Corporatism – more commonly called Fascism. It would be to our
eternal disgrace to leave our children and grandchildren living as slaves under
a soul-killing, diseased system like this. The place to start taking back our
country is to stop the installation of the smart grid, smart meters and the
centralized command and control structures that are being put in place with it.
Vicky Davis