- OHIO Another battle won against cell towers that were going to be installed without proper notification and consultation. Once up, even if done illegally, it is difficult to get these things removed because of the power of money.
- Below in Letters is one from Kit of Smart Meter Awareness the US, in 2011-2012 the Internal Revenue Service allowed $$meters to be amortized over 5 years!! And Hydro/Fortis that want to be allowed to amortize the costs over 20 years, trying to convince us that these things are not just cheap plastic computers that will have to be replaced long before they are paid for.
- Ronald Powell has collected some excellent resources. I think I circulated this earlier, but I can’t find it in my records, so here it is again.
- Going off the Grid: New things are constantly being developed that will help us cut our ties to Hydro/Fortis. This is the most recent, from Tesla, and the cost is not prohibitive:
“A new version of Tesla’s rechargeable battery system, the Powerwall, is coming this summer.
The Powerwall can store solar energy and provide backup power for your home. The first version, unveiled in 2015, can fit either on the outside or inside the wall of your house. What improvements we will see in the updated version are unclear”
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-teslas-powerwall-works-2016-2
- Many of us are frustrated that Health Canada, Perry Kendall (BC provincial health officer), and other agencies are allowing proliferation of wireless devices, such as $$meters and wifi in school when solid, independent scientific evidence is clear that this is potentially harmful, especially for children. I recommend reading this 59 page document, about how the US FCC and government are run by the corporations. I am sure the same thing applies to Health Canada, government(s) and officials. We need to know what we are up against if we are going to protect our homes and families. It’s time the public knew the truth. A very interesting read.
“CAPTURED AGENCY: How the Federal Communications Commission Is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates”
http://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/capturedagency_alster.pdf *****************************
Letters:
In October I wrote the article, Congressional Testimony: ‘Smart’ meters have a life of 5 to 7 years., based upon testimony I found from October 21, 2015.
Although the headline was that smart meters have a life of 5 to 7 years based upon the quote from Congressional testimony by a utility executive, my article also quoted information from the Ontario Auditor General that the smart meter lifetime 15-year estimate is overly optimistic and that smart meters are likely to be obsolete in the timeframe of six to 10 years.
It was also mentioned from various sources that analog meters are expected to last anywhere from 20 to 40 years.
Activists from the Seattle area forwarded me a link to a 2012 IRS National Office Technical Advice Memorandum which provides favorable tax treatment for what would appear to be today’s version of a programmable, networked, 2-way communicating smart meter, referred to as “Meter 2” within the IRS Memorandum.
Specifically, smart meters (as Meter 2) have “a class life of 6 years” based upon a determination that they fall within the classification of an “information system.”
Based upon the information from my blog article I have since generally stated that I consider smart meters as having an expected lifetime of somewhere between 5 to 10 years, considerably less than the assumptions that utilities use within cost benefit analyses. The IRS Memo further supports this assertion.
The IRS Memo supports the technological nature of smart meters as “information systems” that have fairly short expected lifetimes and would appear to allow utilities to depreciate smart meters in the U.S. over a period of 5 years where they may have elsewhere assumed they will have a useful lifetime of 15 to 20 years for business case purposes.
So there appears to be a sleight of hand here; let me use 15 to 20 years for my business case, but then also let me depreciate the meter over 5 years for tax purposes. But we can’t be sure that the IRS Memo is still in effect today. But the one link below is directly from the IRS website.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/1244015.pdf
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Newsletter prepared by Sharon Noble
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein