Close Topic Options

Baker Discusses New Smart Meters

Baker Discusses New Smart Meters
Smart electric meters are being installed in homes across the country. The wireless devices replace old meters and transmit electricity usage data wirelessly to utilities. But there are concerns about accuracy and safety. Guy Raz talks to David Baker, energy reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, for more.
Source: Science

Meters Smart Discusses Baker

People like Baker need to be whipped then drawn and quartered. I am so sick and tired of people beaking off about how electronic meters are to dangerous and untrustworthy. It is all the same technology most people shove to their ear on a daily bases and say "Hi mommsy is every thing alright?"

So here is the truth pretty much the best I can place it, having worked in this industry since 1990.

Meters do not blow up unless hit by extremely high voltage like lightning or a primary voltage.(56000 to 12000 volts vs 120 in your home) Pretty much a normal reaction by any electronic component. When they do blow up all that happens is the power supply or a chip burns up and causes a small amount of smoke in the meter cover. Never have I heard of or seen one catch fire due to this occurring.

Meters do not cause house fires unlike the silly report mad by the Toronto Sun. From the video they had played on their web site it looked like the meter base (The part that the meter plugs into.) shorted Line to neutral. The neutral (white wire) in that type of base passes through the center of the base and is very close quarters to the line voltage(Black wire). Keep in mind this style of base is older then the hills (30 years or more) as such they get dirty they do start deteriorating and as the house settles they can also move a bit. Thus the two wire have come near each other allowing the voltage to jump from on wire to the other, thus causing a line to ground short. Thi8s will suddenly cause a draw of thousandths of amps. Basically similar to an arc welder. It heats up the wire insulating melts and causes a fire.

Second concern is the radio inside the meter cancer concerns yes they are there. No different from your cordless phone, cell phone, PS3 console, WII console. I have read many reports as to whether or not Radio and Electro-magnetic frequencies are directly linked to cancer brain or other wise and I must admit it helped me little. I found they are split 50/50 depending on why they were conducted. So I suggest to all go read up on them look at what other more proactive countries have done for their legislation on EMF exposure and make your own educated decision.

Now as far as Metering accuracy these new meter are 99.8 percent or better in their registration. If they do go bad they usually just stop working and pop up and error code. This is ok for the customer as now they might be getting free electricity.

Old meters were mechanical much like an odometer in a car the mechanical gears would wear causing them to slow down or jam. The also had magnetic bearing the worn down and caused the meters to slow down. It was not uncommon to pull a meter from the field and found it to be register only 50% of what was being used.

So please do place your thoughts and I would be glad to answer any questions regarding electrical meters and how they are used or installed.

Baker Discusses New Smart Meters UFO & Writing Art Education Sciences

I read the poster's view above but is there evidence that might be signalling that these things might be affecting us? No one cries "Ban it" unless someone has brought it up as a reason. Microwave signals are all around us and they aren't natural to how things were a hundred years ago.