skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump marks first 100 days in office in campaign mode, focused on grudges and grievances; Maine's Rep. Pingree focuses on farm resilience as USDA cuts funding; AZ protesters plan May Day rally against Trump administration; Proposed Medicaid cuts could threaten GA families' health, stability.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump marks first 100 days of his second term. GOP leaders praise the administration's immigration agenda, and small businesses worry about the impacts of tariffs as 90-day pause ends.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Migration to rural America increased for the fourth year, technological gaps handicap rural hospitals and erode patient care, and doctors are needed to keep the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians healthy and align with spiritual principles.

What’s So Smart About the Smart Grid?

play audio
Play

Monday, January 27, 2014   

SAN FRANCISCO - There's a growing rebellion against "smart meters" for measuring electricity use, in California and around the nation, and experts are saying the smart energy grid they're supposedly serving is a waste of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars. A panel discussion in San Francisco will tell how new meters and networks don't improve energy efficiency, don't help balance supply and demand, don't help integrate renewable, sustainable energy, and may threaten consumers' health and privacy.

According to Dr. Tim Schoechle, a communications and computer engineering consultant, the smart meters have been oversold.

"The public has been misled about the utility or the usefulness of the smart meters as being part of the smart grid," he charged. "They have really nothing to do with the smart grid."

He also said not enough is known about the possible harmful effects of the electromagnetic frequencies generated in homes by smart meters. Critics say they're only good for gathering information about consumers' energy use and habits, data that's used for advertising and marketing purposes.

James Turner, who chairs Citizens for Health, said the FCC and the EPA should examine not only how electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) can raise the temperature of living tissue, but look into non-thermal effects some people suffer as well.

"It could be headaches, it could be what appear to be allergic reactions, it could be depression, things that are not directly related to the heat output of the EMF."

Turner said the really smart grid of the future will integrate energy generated by consumers, through solar and wind power, and send it on a two-way grid.

"We believe really strongly in a dispersed energy framework where the periphery, the end users, are generating energy back into the grid, and then the grid is actually just basically a switching system that switches it out to where it needs to be used."

Tim Schoechle cautioned that smart meters raise invasion-of-privacy issues too.

He said the situation is "just like has happened in the Internet, with phones and browsers collecting massive amounts of personal information for advertising purposes. And that's really what this massive amount of data that's been collected from these meters has gotten diverted into, purposes like that."

The event, led by the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy, is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. at the Commonwealth Club of California, on Market Street in San Francisco.





get more stories like this via email

more stories
A day before Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested, federal authorities apprehended a former New Mexico judge and his wife on charges related to harboring an undocumented immigrant. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Legal experts and advocates are outraged over the arrest of a Milwaukee judge last week who was charged with helping an undocumented defendant avoid a…


play sound

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have proposed privatizing the United States Postal Service by selling it off to a corporation such as FedEx or UP…

Environment

play sound

A major player in the Northwest's energy landscape is considering changes in the future, as extreme climate events make power delivery in Oregon more …


The Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington is the largest in the Bonneville Power Administration system. (Will/Adobe Stock)

Environment

play sound

A major player in the Northwest's energy landscape is considering changes in the future as extreme climate events make power delivery in Washington mo…

Social Issues

play sound

On May 1, Oregon labor and immigrants' rights organizations are gathering in Salem calling for justice for immigrant workers and an end to mass …

play sound

A bill to legalize cigar smoking in designated Montana barrooms has failed a third reading in the state House. Similar legislation is introduced most …

Social Issues

play sound

Tourism generates $3 billion annually in North Dakota but tribal officials say direct spending from visitors does not always reach their areas. Now…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021