CHARBONNEAU – Where’s the flap over smart meters now?

I RECEIVED A NOTICE in the mail from Fortis gas letting me know that they will be installing smart meters in my area of Kamloops.

Fine by me.

Like my BC Hydro smart meter, I’ll be able to monitor my natural gas consumption online. No longer will I have to keep the meter access clear by pruning shrubs because the meter can be read remotely.

But I wonder where all the angst and wringing of hands is; as when BC Hydro first introduced smart meters in 2012.

Protestors gathered in cities, big and small to oppose the installation of smart meters by BC Hydro. They protested in Campbell River, Burnaby, and Kelowna. They mounted legal challenges organized by Citizens for Safe Technology and the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters.

A 46-year-old man in Hope attempted to prevent the installation of a smart meter on his home by threatening utility employees with a homemade explosive device.

At their convention, the Union of British Columbia Municipalities passed a resolution asking the provincial government to place a moratorium on BC Hydro’s smart meter program.

Outside the convention, protesters handed out leaflets that stated health concerns and privacy issues related to the wireless smart meters.

Sensibly, then Premier Christy Clark would not consider a moratorium on the installation. Clark said she had consulted with experts and didn’t share health concerns of the protestors, considering the abundance of wireless devices that already exist.

I have to wonder what the flap was all about in the first place.

Protesters claimed that the installation of meters was an invasion of privacy but apparently not when the old meters were first installed. And apparently that invasion of privacy was not felt when a BC Hydro meter reader walked on to their property to read the meter.

Laughably, protesters said that the smart meters represented an intrusion of government into private lives. It’s hard to imagine some nefarious intentions on the part of a utility company in reading electricity consumption for billing purposes – especially when the reading of old meters had been done for decades.

Incredulously, protesters claimed potential health effects of electromagnetic radiation from the meters.

Radiation from smart meters is miniscule compared to other common sources such as WiFi routers and cell phones (1.0 µW/cm² at 1 metre for smart meters, 10 µW/cm² at 1 metre for routers, and up to 10,000 µW/cm² for cell phones held close to the head).

And unlike other common devices, smart meters are not on continuously; they “chirp” for only a few milliseconds a day.

What we should be concerned about is the amount of ionizing radiation we receive that can damage skin and cause cancer as measured in microSieverts (mSv).

Radon Gas in your house can deliver ionizing particles amounting to 2–4 mSv/year.

And in just one hour in the summer Kamloops sun, you can receive 25 times the dose of ionizing radiation that you get from Radon gas in a year.

Concerns are often misplaced. Waves of protests swell up over inconsequential things while we drown in the things that really matter like climate change.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.