Professors, community members divided on Smart Meter program
Clark University played host to a community forum on Monday night when professors, students and members of the community tackled issues surrounding National Grid's implementation of a Smart Grid program, which has plans to install 15,000 “smart meters” (simply, new wireless electric meters) on homes and businesses around the city.
The event began with a panel of four Clark University professors weighing in on the topic. Chuck Agosta, professor of physics, Rob Goble, research professor, environmental science and policy and the Marsh Institute, Gil Pontius, professor of geography and Jennie Stephens, assistant professor of environmental science and policy each addressed pre-prepared general questions before the floor was opened to members of the public.
Stephens placed emphasis on the need for a more sustainable energy system for the city and for civilization in general. “We are now more dependent on electricity than we ever have been before,” she said. “We are increasingly aware of the need to move away from fossil fuels. Upgrading our electricity system and moving away from fossil fuels is a fundamental priority of my work.”
The Smart Grid system would eliminate the need for a worker to read individual meters and would allow energy usage to be monitored remotely. Agosta echoed her sentiment, likening the current grid to a “mesh of wires” and noting that when there is an outage, the power company triangulates the locations of outage reports using the locations of phone numbers from where outage reports are originating, thus eventually finding the downed line.
Pontius framed his view of the system in a wider perspective than just the city of Worcester, saying “What happens in Worcester will not stay in Worcester, this is clear. Worcester is the site of a program where new energy technologies are being produced. The goal of the program is to learn how these perform and to use what we learn to spread the technologies elsewhere.”
Several members of the community were present to voice their opposition. Clare Donegan of HaltMAsmartmeters.org expressed frustration that National Grid, and perhaps the panel, had failed to separate the benefits of the new system from the questions of the populace. These questions include uncertainty regarding privacy and health, especially, she says, when it comes to those who suffer from electro-magnetic hypersensitivity. “The privacy point got me interested in this, but when I started meeting people with electro-magnetic hypersensitivity, it's the health issue that made me sick.”
Like Donegan, John Dick, of Worcester Opts Out, came to the issue from a privacy standpoint. “There's privacy concerns. We have enough spying going on in our country right now, governmentally. Do we need corporations spying too? I don't think so.”
Despite several attempts by Clark students to steer the conversation toward sustainability, green energy and climate change, the debate over health concerns was featured prominently in the evening's discussion, and Goble, who was asked to speak to instructive ways to proceed, acknowledged that while there is controversy over the health effects, “the scene is really confusing.” He proposed taking a wider view of the system, asking, “Can one, in the course of making a better grid, try to be as protective as one can about this kind of radiation?” He suggested that a flexible system, one that provides options for residents, could mitigate some of the concerns regarding health risks and “inconclusive” data.
Ted Conna, a Worcester resident, raised the question of current radiation. “Has anyone quantified how much exposure [to electro-magnetic radiation] there is now, and what would be added by adding a smart grid system?” His question went unanswered.
A main source of frustration for many of those opposed to the smart grid stems from a perceived lack of individual choice in the matter. Dick put it succinctly by stating simply, “When smartphones came out, people weren't just given smartphones and then asked to pay for them.”
The discussion provided a lively counterpoint between the academic approach to sustainability and technological progress and the admittedly muddy territory of privacy and health concerns. Several Clark students presented their research in poster form and were available for engagement after the discussion.
If representatives from National Grid were in attendance they did not make their presence known.
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