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Vast Majority of Consumers Suffer Financial “Net Loss” with Smart Meters
This article provides specific information to counter claims made by smart meter proponents that smart meters provide consumers with financial benefits, i.e., saving energy and reducing their utility bill. In addition, this article presents information to help disentangle how policy makers conflate the topics of grid modernization, smart meter deployments, and sound environmental policy.
Inflated or False Claims on How Smart Meters Help Consumers Save Money
As an attempt to convince consumers that smart meters are “good” for them, they are fed propaganda-like messages regarding “consumer empowerment” by smart meter proponents. In short, and as stated by the Attorney General for the state of Illinois:
“The pitch is that smart meters will allow consumers to monitor their electrical usage, helping them to reduce consumption and save money. … Consumers don’t need to be forced to pay billions for so-called smart technology to know how to reduce their utility bills. We know to turn down the heat or air conditioning and shut off the lights.”
Internet by light promises to leave Wi-Fi eating dust
Barcelona (AFP) - Connecting your smartphone to the web with just a lamp -- that is the promise of Li-Fi, featuring Internet access 100 times faster than Wi-Fi with revolutionary wireless technology.
French start-up Oledcomm demonstrated the technology at the Mobile World Congress, the world's biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona. As soon as a smartphone was placed under an office lamp, it started playing a video.
The big advantage of Li-Fi, short for "light fidelity", is its lightning speed.
Laboratory tests have shown theoretical speeds of over 200 Gbps -- fast enough to "download the equivalent of 23 DVDs in one second", the founder and head of Oledcomm, Suat Topsu, told AFP.
"Li-Fi allows speeds that are 100 times faster than Wi-Fi" which uses radio waves to transmit data, he added.
The technology uses the frequencies generated by LED bulbs -- which flicker on and off imperceptibly thousands of times a second -- to beam information through the air, leading it to be dubbed the "digital equivalent of Morse Code".
It started making its way out of laboratories in 2015 to be tested in everyday settings in France, a Li-Fi pioneer, such as a museums and shopping malls. It has also seen test runs in Belgium, Estonia and India.
Dutch medical equipment and lighting group Philips is reportedly interested in the technology and Apple may integrate it in its next smartphone, the iPhone7, due out at the end of the year, according to tech media.
With analysts predicting the number of objects that are connected to the Internet soaring to 50 million by 2020 and the spectrum for radio waves used by Wi-Fi in short supply, Li-Fi offers a viable alternative, according to its promoters.
"We are going to connect our coffee machine, our washing machine, our tooth brush. But you can't have more than ten objects connected in Bluetooth or Wi-Fi without interference," said Topsu.
Deepak Solanki, the founder and chief executive of Estonian firm Velmenni which tested Li-fi in an industrial space last year, told AFP he expected that "two years down the line the technology can be commercialised and people can see its use at different levels."
Analysts said it was still hard to say if Li-Fi will become the new Wi-Fi.
"It is still a laboratory technology," said Frederic Sarrat, an analyst and consultancy firm PwC.
Much will depend on how Wi-Fi evolves in the coming years, said Gartner chief analyst Jim Tully.
"Wi-Fi has shown a capability to continuously increase its communication speed with each successive generation of the technology," he told AFP.
Li-fi has its drawbacks -- it only works if a smartphone or other device is placed directly in the light and it cannot travel through walls.
This restricts its use to smaller spaces, but Tully said this could limit the risk of data theft.
"Unlike Wi-Fi, Li-Fi can potentially be directed and beamed at a particular user in order to enhance the privacy of transmissions," he said.
Backers of Li-Fi say it would also be ideal in places where Wi-Fi is restricted to some areas such as schools and hospitals.
"Li-fi has a place in hospitals because it does not create interference with medical materials," said Joel Denimal, head of French lighting manufacturer Coolight.
In supermarkets it could be used to give information about a product, or in museums about a painting, by using lamps placed nearby.
It could also be useful on aircraft, in underground garages and any place where lack of Internet connection is an issue.
But Li-Fi also requires that devices be equipped with additional technology such as a card reader, or dongle, to function. This gives it a "cost disadvantage", said Tully.
Mobile phones are 'cooking' men's sperm
Original Source - Telegraph.co.uk
Fertility experts are warning man that using a mobile for as little as an hour a day is "cooking sperm" and lowering level significantly.
The new study shows that having a mobile phone close to the testicles - or within a foot or two of the body - can lower sperm levels so much that conceiving could be difficult.
The findings have led to a leading British fertility expert to advise men to stop being addicted to mobile phones.
"If you wear a suit to work put the mobile in your chest pocket instead of close to your testes. It will reduce the risk of your sperm count dropping or dropping so much."
- Prof Gedis Grudzinskas
The study - by highly respected specialists - found that sperm levels of men who kept their phones in their pocket during the day were seriously affected in 47 per cent of cases compare to just 11 per cent in the general population.
Professor Martha Dirnfeld, of the Technion University in Haifa, said: "We analysed the amount of active swimming sperm and the quality and found that it had been reduced.
"We think this is being caused by a heating of the sperm from the phone and by electromagnetic activity." [emphasis added by IEHA. Notice the scientist says heating of the sperm (thermal effects) but then he says AND electromagnetic activity (NON-thermal effects). This scientist knows and is confirming that there are non-thermal effects of EMF exposure.
The team monitored more than 100 men attending a fertility clinic for a year.
They found that besides men keeping their phones close to their groin many spoke on the phone while it was charging and kept it only a few centimeters from their bed.
Even keeping the phone on a bedside table appears to raise lower sperm cell counts.
The findings are in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine and support a long-feared link between dropping fertility rates in men and the prevalent use of cellular phones.
The quality of sperm among men in Western countries is constantly decreasing and is considered crucial in 40 percent of the cases in which couples have difficulty conceiving a child.
Professor Gedis Grudzinskas, a fertility consult ant St George's Hospital London and in Harley Street said: " Men need to think about their well being and try to stop being addicted to their phones.
"If you wear a suit to work put the mobile in your chest pocket instead of close to your testes. It will reduce the risk of your sperm count dropping or dropping so much.
"Women generally don't carry their mobiles on them so maybe a mobile phone won't affect their fertility. That's not something we have looked at"
- Prof Martha Dirnfeld
"And do you need to keep the phone right next to you on the bedside table. Some men keep their mobile in their shorts or pajamas in bed. Is that really necessary?"
Professor Dirnfeld said: "I think this is a warning to men to change their habits to improve their chances of having children. Women generally don't carry their mobiles on them so maybe a mobile phone won't affect their fertility. That's not something we have looked at."
Professor Alan Pacey, a fertility research scientist at Sheffield University has scoffed at suggestions that mobile phones could be damaging male fertility and insists he will be carry on putting his mobile in his trouser pocket.
Professor Dirnfeld said: "Dr Pacey might not need to worry about his fertility, but for younger guys it is a worry. If you a trying for a baby and it doesn't happen within a year you might want to think of whether it could be your mobile phone habit that is to blame."
How to avoid "smart" meter "opt-out" fees?
How can we avoid being forced by the power company to pay an "opt-out" extortion fee? One good way may be through legal notices - sending affidavits to the power company to change the terms of the contract we have with them and get rid of the opt-out fees.
We have posted an example of such an affidavit in our members section. Has anyone used this or something similar - what were your results? I will keep you posted of mine here as soon as my "opt-out" fee is straightened out.
Messages from IEHA Charter Members
These messages are from our first members - the charter members - that helped get the IEHA going!
WHO Class 2B Carcinogen classification and "stroll down memory lane"
http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
Date: May 31, 2011 Lyon, France
The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B) based on increase risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use.
Stroll down memory lane
A page or two in the school WiFi book should be dedicated to reminding readers about past human misjudgments - things that affected health (such as "cigarettes are good for you" - "more doctors smoke Camels than anything else" and other examples of chemical/radiation exposure that caused real harm - like lead paint)
Date: May 31, 2011 Lyon, France
The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B) based on increase risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use.
Stroll down memory lane
A page or two in the school WiFi book should be dedicated to reminding readers about past human misjudgments - things that affected health (such as "cigarettes are good for you" - "more doctors smoke Camels than anything else" and other examples of chemical/radiation exposure that caused real harm - like lead paint)
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