To the Editor:
A “smart grid” is an electricity distribution network that utilizes “smart meters.” A Smart Meter is a wireless or hard-wired two-way communication device that connects your home or business and broadcasts your personal information and energy use habits to the electric grid company. Current analog meters have been safely used for decades and they still work.
"Smart," a buzz word for something good or superior, as in "smart" meters, are being installed all around the world to implement the smart grid for UN Agenda 21, even though electromagnetic radiation is a killer.
In 2009 millions of households across America were taking a first step into the world of the smart grid, as their power companies installed meters that can tell them how much electricity they are using hour by hour — and sometimes, appliance by appliance.
Power companies claim the meters will allow utilities to vary the price charged to their customers by the hour to correspond to what those utilities are paying for energy in the wholesale market, resulting in consumers saving money.
Not so, according to California Pacific Gas & Electric customers who complained their meters were running too fast and were charging them for energy they hadn't used.
Many customers also found it unfair they had to begin paying immediately for the new meters through higher rates. Meters cost the utility roughly $220 apiece, including installation, savings that could be years away for customers.
ComEd, although lagging behind other states, is accelerating the deployment of smart meters here in Illinois even while the largest Massachusetts electric utility has declared smart meters as "irrational." ComEd is presently beginning the process of installing digital electric meters throughout its northern Illinois service territory.
The Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2011, enacted over Gov. Pat Quinn's veto, handed ComEd annual rate hikes over a decade in return for a $2.6 billion initiative to modernize its local grid and install a smart meter system. Accordingly, Com Ed will be installing smart meters for all its customers over a 10-year period, even though provisions within the federal 2005 Energy Policy Act state that: "Each electric utility...shall provide each customer requesting a time-based rate with a time-based meter..." The law seems to imply that installation of smart meters is not mandatory.
In accordance with the 2011 state law, per a February 2014 decision made by the Illinois Commerce Commission, ComEd customers might shortly expect the following:
- Those who refuse to have smart meters installed will be charged $21.53 a month.
- If customers make the decision to refuse a (smart) meter and incur monthly charges associated with this choice, it should be with full knowledge that this refusal is simply deferring the inevitable.
Smart Meter, a Source of EMF Exposure
Common sources of electromagnetic or EMF exposure -- called today's new pollution -- include smart meters, cell and cordless phones, cell towers, wi-fi, indoor wiring, CFL’s, overhead power lines and more. Smart meters have been designated as the most recent danger. The smart meter ComEd is installing here in Illinois is similar to those already installed in other states. The installation of a so-called smart grid allows a ComEd smart meter to transmit data on your household energy usage wirelessly to ComEd. Eventually this might result in the expansion of installing smart meters on each household appliance within your home, to individually transmit the usage data to the smart meter.
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies wireless radiation as a 2B carcinogen, based on studies liking wireless radiation to brain tumors. The list of symptoms related by those having smart meter are numerous. Several include: sleep problems, stress, agitation, anxiety, irritability; headaches, sharp pain or pressure in the head; and ringing in the ears, ear pain, high pitched ringing.
One of the most striking observations in Josh del Sol's "Take Back your Power" was a live blood analysis where observable effects could be seen after exposure to smart meters, even among those who had no symptoms to speak of.
If you are still not convinced that the telecom industry has been given full authority to deploy wireless technologies that damage our DNA, hopefully this account of a mother, Virginia Farver, who lost her son from GBM-Glioblastoma Multiforme Brain Cancer on October 11, 2008 to microwave frequencies received while a graduate student at San Diego State University, will dispel your skepticism.
Ms. Farver, in looking into the death of her son, found there were two sites on the SDSU Campus where HPWREN Networks (High Performance Wireless Research and Educational Network) were located. One of the HPWREN towers was on top of the Communications Building which towered above Nasatir Hall, Room 131 where Rick Farver spent long hours as a TA meeting students, grading papers and studying. The other HPWREN tower was on top of the KPBS News Station on campus, both within a quarter mile of each other, with locations on the highest points on campus. There were five other brain cancer death victims besides Rick Farver. All four resided in Nasatir Hall, either in Room 131 or in an adjoining room that faced the HPWREN cell tower. It would seem irrational to call these brain cancer cluster deaths which occurred on the SDSU Campus a coincidence.
Besides documented health problems, there are also numerous accounts of smart meter fires and explosions. Among the many accounts, on Feb. 7, 30 residents were displaced by an electrical fire in Bensalem, Pa. In Lakeland, Fla. smart meters overheated, caught fire and melted in January 2004.
The smart grid was not supposed to lead to rate hikes, but when smart meters were installed in the Naperville area, utility bills did increase.
Could monetary "bribes" possibly account for the lack of response from Illinois legislators when alerted to the documented dangers of smart meters and the dangers they present to rate payers in Illinois? ComEd, based in Chicago, is a powerful and politically connected company and knows how to get what it wants.
Say No to ComEd. Do not be a sucker for costly "opt-out" programs. It's extortion! Utility companies have blind-sided their customers with digital meters that are harmful, dangerous, invasive and unlawful. What's at stake is our basic right to life, health, choice and freedom.
Nancy J. Thorner
Lake Bluff, Ill.