1) Update re “BC Hydro’s message”: Over the weekend, I received over a dozen responses, most of which said they had received the very same message, which I will include below in “Letters“. The purpose is to say that there are changes to the manual reading schedule that will “improve” the reading process. The vagueness of this raises questions. How will the schedule changes improve the process? Is it to allow for time-of-use billing which BC Hydro has announced will be implemented, on an opt-in basis?
The smeters had “firmware” upgrades a while ago (I’ve lost track of the timing here) which, we were told, did not change the status of the transmitter. Someone came with what looked like a laptop and connected it to the smeter for quite some time. When I asked what changes were being made to the smeter, the BC Hydro person told me he had no idea, which I found odd. When I asked head office, they gave some vague response which told me nothing. I checked mine afterwards and the transmitter was still disabled.
One person told me that the firmware upgrade on her smeter was done on April 28, 2022. During the summer of 2023, she noticed static on the radio several times a day and even at night. As far as she knows, no other changes had been made to the smeter. I’ve suggested she test for emissions using an RF meter.
Has anyone else noticed static on the radio? AM radios can be used to detect RF emissions if you don’t have an RF meter.
https://www.electricsense.com/how-to-detect-rf-radiation-using-your-am-radio/
Please send anything significant you find or learn about these “improvements” to me at: citizensforsafertech@shaw.ca with “BC Hydro’s message” on the Subject line.
I will share information as I get it. I am concerned that BC Hydro could, without telling us, activate the second transmitter (the ZigBee chip) that communicates with the ‘smart’ devices in our homes, of which there are so many. There is no need to activate this for billing purposes, only for gathering data on uses of devices in our personal spaces.
2) From a US group – a smeter flyer with a lot of information. Of course, right now we in BC can’t do much with this, but I hope that the time will come when we will be able to fight these radiation-emitting transmitters that sit on our homes.
Download Free:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QTLRF5iNkyG40Lei-XV6dtAl9gSFWmhr/view
3) The premise of this important article is that AI is being greenwashed — the energy savings promised, the efficiencies projected are bogus and, potentially, dangerous for our environment and more.
(click on photos to enlarge)
No, AI Won’t Outsmart Our Climate Calamity
“Quite the opposite. Artificial intelligence devours vast energy while clouding the human wisdom that might save us….
The bluff pretends technology is a neutral force rather than one that concentrates power in fewer and fewer hands, replaces the natural with the artificial, turns every end into a means and has only one mandate: efficiency….
The bluff, of course, disparages the precautionary principle — the wisdom of slowing down and weighing risks when contemplating big changes in how we do things — as an irritating obstacle to progress….
… the global digital industry consumes enough water, material and energy to give it a footprint triple that of a country such as the United Kingdom.”
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/04/01/No-AI-Outsmart-Climate-Calamity/
Letters:
We’re updating our manual meter reading schedule for your property’s electricity meter. This will result in a change to when you receive your BC Hydro bill.
This update is to improve our process for manually read electricity meters.
We’ll send you a billing notification email when your next BC Hydro bill is available.
Log in to MyHydro at any time to view your bill, check your balance, and review any important messages about your account. You can also set up pre-authorized payments to automatically withdraw payments from your bank account so you don’t have to worry about missing a payment.
If you have any questions about this change or about your account, contact our customer service team at 1 800 224 9376.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Thanks,
BC Hydro Customer Service
Sharon Noble, Director, Citizens for Safer Tech
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” Henry David Thoreau
Sent from my wired laptop with no wireless components. PLEASE Practice Safe Tech.