by Christiane Brown and Care Leah
PART 1:
Democracy denied. “Smart” meter resistance alive.
I am a private citizen of Canada. I am a senior. I live in British Columbia.
I was, and still am working hard. Like most of us. But I am not wealthy. Like most of us. And I do not carry any academic degree.
But I do carry one degree which tops any academic and/or political one: It is called “conscience”.
Complacency means complicity
At the end of World War II, I was born into a family in which the maxim complacency means complicity played an existential role.
Existential in a very real way: Several members of my family have been executed for their resistance to the regime in Germany between 1933-1945, and for its complete violation of human rights, human dignity, and human life.
This maxim has guided me throughout my life and in all the countries I have lived in before I came to Canada. I have left one country for its rapid democratic deterioration and moved to another which at the time was famous for its high democratic values and respect for an individual’s human right: Canada. That was almost twenty years ago.
Not in my wildest dreams
In my wildest dreams I did not expect what I, and with me tens of thousands of smart meter resisters are confronted with, here in British Columbia, for the last three years.
I am speaking of BC Hydro’s relentless enforcement of unlawful, undemocratic, unconstitutional methods of extortion, intimidation, manipulation, trickery, harassment and plain mis-information and lies with regards to smart meters and their disastrous effects on human health, privacy and billing.
And, of course, BC Hydro’s and the Government’s consistant irresponsible and unconscionable denial of s/meter related fires in this province. British Columbia has no documentation “code” that allows a s/meter related fire to be entered as a statistic. Hence, there is no record of BC ever having had s/meter related house fires. A s/meter related fire has not been given a code, therefore the fire did not happen? How naïve does one think we are?
I remember one of the dozens of BC Hydro Notices that flooded our mailboxes about two years ago in which we were informed “that our smart meter refusal had now expired”. Really? There was a “best before date”?
For three years now, we who have always paid our electrical consumption in full and on time, have been threatened with BC Hydro’s signed – and more and more unsigned notices of deadlines: Alleged meter choices deadlines. Meter replacement deadlines. Punative extortion payment deadlines. 24 hour robo call disconnection deadlines. (And, yes, those were made by Hydro.)
Unmasking the fear campaign
BC Hydro’s terrorist-like tactics are designed to scare us, intimidate us, wear us out and finally break our last reserves of strength. Has it worked? With some, but not all. The blind, the ill, the very old, the not-so-wealthy-; people who have a very busy life to live; work to do; family-and other life’s problems to solve….They “gave their consent”. But non disclosure of risks and use of force to impose uninformed consent is not consent at all.
To sum it up: Throughout the past three years, we have endured a seemingly endless war of psychological control: Hydro has consistently made mutually contradictory and mutually exclusive statements with regards to smart meter installations on the homes of those who are lawfully stating their Claim of Right (www.bc-freedom.com), and their refusal to give away their privately owned analogue meter.
With Christmas and Hanukkah fast approaching, we are expected to believe that “the end is near” and that we have no choice but to “get used to it,” as it was so delicately put. That those with medical implants; those who just underwent surgery; those with epilepsy and other serious medical conditions, all will get used to it or “move to a different province.”
I am lost for words.
And no, we will not go away. We will continue to fight this violation of every moral and legal principle as long as it takes. Our resistance is still very much alive.
– Christiane Brown
PART 2:
Lemons to Lemonade
This story gets better by the day.
It has now been just three weeks since Rotraut Knopp had her power disconnected. The CHEK TV interviewer told Rotraut Knopp that her story (in part due to her reference to growing up in Germany during the war) has apparently become news in Germany media.
Whenever Ms. Knopp goes out locally now, people everywhere she goes recognize her from the news and congratulate her and say to her “Good for you!”
People are truly inspired by her story. Some of them go farther and reach out and help whatever way they can. Several have given or sent her gifts such as wool socks and/or candles, packages arrive by mail.
The story gets even better.
Consider this next bit to be in the supreme irony department.
An unnamed politician in the area had “upgraded” the kitchen, which involved getting rid of a used gas range cookstove, four burners and an oven, which can be retrofitted to use propane. Ms. Knopp was talking to a plumber who had been following her story in the media. This same plumber happened to be the one who removed the gas range. This used gas range was offered to Ms. Knopp, a good as new gas power cookstove, for free.
She will soon be the proud possessor of a politician’s cast-off cookstove range to use for her off-grid cooking needs.
Further?
Ms. Knopp had already long used frugality to reduce her usage to the absolute minimum. She uses only 3 kWh for three seasons of the year and 6 kWh in winter.
She has had two off-grid system quotes. The first one was for $25,000 which would exceed her minimalist needs. The other was a quote of $15,000 to provide her with 3 Kilowatts a day.
For this second solar arrangement, until solar batteries innovations advance sufficiently, Ms. Knopp would in the meantime continue to use her neighbour’s extension cord for a power source to recharge her closed cell, gel type battery bank. The power draw for the extension cord would have its own separate monitor attached to indicate exactly how many kilowatts she uses a day. She would pay the neighbour for any power she “borrows” to recharge her four batteries battery bank.
I think the quote also includes an inverter which would be located in her outdoor shed.
The quote includes an off-grid panel, four 24 volt batteries, 8 solar panels (she was not sure of the wattage yet for each panel) plus whatever else is needed to accomplish this microgrid project.
There is one single perfect shadow free spot in which to locate the solar array. That spot has already been determined to be found in her enclosed back yard. The array does not require a unistrut frame as it can also readily be located on a 2X4 lumber frame for best light options.
Due to her age, pay back is not a consideration for her. Her primary goal is to be off-grid for the rest of her life.
And I can think of no one more suited to this outcome.
– Care Leah
A letter demanding a public inquiry and review of BC Hydro’s conduct.
I am also a senior living on disability
Dear BC Hydro
I am in receipt of your most recent disconnection threat notice for alleged amounts BC Hydro claims are owed by me to this Crown corporation. My records tell me that I am not in arrears and that your records are incorrect. I am disputing your BC Hydro billing. I demand an impartial review of BC Hydro billing procedures by an independent third party.
I am not prepared to continue to allow you to abuse and ignore due legal
process or to continue to harass me and attempt to coerce me into accepting
unacceptable new terms of our contract.
I have never given my consent
nor will I give consent or permit the corporation of BC Hydro to override my
private property rights. Therefore BC Hydro has no right:
– to alter our contractual understanding or make any changes in our original contractual arrangements, a contractual violation for which I rightfully and lawfully withhold my consent;
– to place my family and private property at risk, a contractual violation;
– to install a dangerous non UL and non CSA safety tested device or to otherwise locate anywhere on my property any corporate owned and controlled alleged “smart meter”, since this device is in fact a radio transmitter antenna device functioning as one node of a corporate controlled communications network;
– to fail to provide substantive proof that BC Hydro and its agents and subsidiaries were ever entitled to preemptively violate easements and to trespass for the purpose of removing from my private property my electromechanical analogue meter property fixture;
– to seek to override my property right of refusal of siting of a commercial antenna device which seeks to make use of my private property for corporate purposes, while billing corporate operating costs of that same device to me and while expecting me or any customer to pay to operate BC Hydro’s own network for its private corporate profit.
All of BC Hydro’s violations,as referenced above, constitute contractual violations for which I rightfully and lawfully withhold my consent.
It is widely known and documented that all brands of smart “meters” have an RD switch and all are a fire hazard. Smart “meters” have caused fires across Canada. In Saskatoon the Hydro Utility has removed almost all of its smart “meters” because of numerous fire incidents. Fires have also been caused by smart “meters” here in BC but the data is not being collected on these fires, apparently because your corporation appears to be complicit in surreptitiously hiding the information to protect its own interests. Thousands of families are at risk from your abuse and negligence, I among them, and I am not prepared to put up with your abuse.
Furthermore, I hereby formally dispute the current billing practices of BC Hydro and its administrators and demand a formal independent public review. I will continue to pay for all the electrical power that I use. I will also pay the regional
transit levy and the associated GST, (rate rider). However, I will NOT pay any
other alleged so called legacy meter fees until I have been provided with a
formal comprehensive legal review of BC Hydro’s billing practices.
I have filed a complaint with the Ombudsman of BC and am preparing to file a complaint with the BBB with regard to BC Hydro’s appalling conduct and questionable business practices since the inception of this invasive, dangerous, health threatening smart “meter” program. All attempts to intimidate or coerce me into accepting your dictates will fail. Be advised there are 100,000 other BC
residents standing in the wings ready to join me in this endeavor. Enough is
enough, BC Hydro. You have gone too far.
We are in dispute. Threats and intimidation will not resolve this matter.
I demand that BC Hydro cease and desist from threatening me, Lester Braden, with disconnection of my power for so called non payment when BC Hydro is apprised of the fact and knows full well that I have paid in full every month for the power I use and my payment history dating back to the 1980’s will substantiate that. I have only withheld alleged fees which BC Hydro has illegitimately added
to my bill, despite the fact that my bill already has structured into it
sufficient charges to cover the costs of the original meter readers, built in
charges which I have paid all along. I will continue to withhold what I see as
illegitimate fees regardless of how BC Hydro chooses to misuse words as
justification for same.
The Legacy meter fees are tantamount to a protection racket.
It is my right to protect my family and property from the risks associated with smart network communications devices. This includes my right to prevent any hazards to life, limb and property associated with this device, be they insurance risks or the risk of becoming trapped inside my own house by a fire originating at and precipitated by the electrically incompatible device installed on my own meter socket. To avoid this reckless endangerment, BC Hydro has demanded that I pay a fee called a “legacy meter fee”. That demand that I pay a fee to protect myself,
my family and property from this reckless endangerment constitutes outright extortion and is unacceptable.
Les
PS for readers. Its time to start pressing for accountability from BC Hydro. I encourage others to file a complaint with the Ombudsman and BBB. The more message these organizations get the more pressure it puts on Hydro. They are violating all our contractual rights and will get away with it only if we cave and let them. Stand up and be counted now. The first official complaint has been filed with the Ombudsman of BC. They need to hear from more of you, even if its only a letter and not a formal complaint.
Excellent job, thank you Les.
Recently I was forced to pay over $800.00 in charges owing from past usage. I have no idea where these came from as there were 8 pages of confusing numbers and dates…
I paid it to avoid being cuttoff, we are in our 70’s and don’t want to freeze to death this winter.
Look out folks, here in Ontario they are implementing smart water meters. The problem with this program is the meters are in the home and many folks are denying access. As of July 1, 2014 they are charging $80. per meter reading as they say they are discontinuing mail-in or call-in readings (which has worked for the past 50 years that I know of). No one has come to the house to read the meter in at least two years and it’s always been mailed/called in. However they feel it’s necessary to add $80. to the utility bill, which has and will continue to be deducted. It’s truly extortion and nothing more. I would highly recommend that you discontinue automatic payments and have your bank also put a permanent stop payment so unexpected charges cannot be taken from your bank account.
Next, they’re coming after our gas meters.
Maybe you just stumbled on one solution that a whole new hold out demographic attests has worked well for those who are prepared to slightly “alter” the home’s envelope to “embrace” all three kinds of meters.
The (Non) Spy Who Came In From The Cold
Older homes often have some or all meters located indoors, in basements, etc, Others are on meter walls that lend themselves to creative solid small or other “additions”. If thought through this can cost next to nothing.
Rumour has it that a number of people cottoned on to the fact that it is a violation of code and it’s illegal for any utility, subsidiary and/or agent to make amy physical contact with the owner’s meter base. It is not permitted to install under live load either, But it is not allowed to tamper with a meter socket at all, nor to introduce any stabs or prongs into any owner owned UL and CSA meter socket, or to even touch the owner’s socket physically in any way, including to test terminals or to upgrade sockets or via amy part of any device. It is the case that only the meter socket owner can hire an electrician who in turn is the only one who is permitted to acquire a work permit to touch the owner’s meter base.
This means that to tamper with the socket is similar to a case of break and enter. However in order to break and enter wirelessly, first they have to break the law physically
In fact installers B & E is how the Take Back Your Power film begins. However, that is why steel doors and battering ram blockades and burglar proofing accessories were invented. Use of more than one really solid security layer and technique can make a world of difference.
Locks alone are not the answer. In England they bring along a locksmith so as to access countless indoor located safe meters, to swap them out for the new, trendy, “Edward Snowden warned us about all this whole thing” Internet of Things meters.
Trouble is YOU become one of those THINGS.
So naivete and denial don’t pay.
It’s a fact that all but the most expensive professionally installed Abloy locks only keep out honest people.
Some of those who have decided to engage in the next level of this kind of resistance approach to stealth installs are using extra strength recycled steel doors, wired glass windows, attached car alarms or security alarms tied into a security system plus CCTV warning stickers for actual security system multi cameras with night vision, cameras on view, dog warnings, all of this aimed at every possible relevant window and door, and in plain site.
Layered barricading, use of specialized inside door jamming accessories, real steel bars, hardened steel slides. Remember, in most cases this is not meant to be a fire exit nor a regular exit tho it should have a door accessed solely from the interior, but otherwise it is an add on storage area, a meter room, often added on to the side door area of a garage, for instance, or otherwise.
Small, well placed, correctly secured, thick glazed meter viewing window(s), good lighting for the meters, windows replete with interior anti theft grilles, and more, these are also used to stop crooks from stealing, to block break & enter attempts, to foil trespassing, etc.
Everywhere stories are emerging about those who have already added tiny full height securely enclosed meter rooms, meter wall additions, meter locked fully enclosed breezeways, meter specific attached storage sheds with steel burglar accessories on the interior side, in some cases full sized additions in which are stored power outage equipment or off grid equipment, outside the actual original envelope yet fully secure,
This and more is now used to stop meter stalkers and thieves.
The prevailing philosophy of the new barricaders seems to be that since all suppliers of energy are in full smart collusion to destroy all private sanctuary, rob one’s home, remotely co-opt essential functions of one’s service panel and worse, smart interactive communications nodes for everything (maybe the plan is for s/metered air next?) …. then it follows that any desirable meter that is currently located OUTSIDE the house envelope needs to have a solid, well built, affordable steel doored or only accessible from indoors envelope extension wrapped around the meter location. It can be of any size but of course must be at least large enough to create a utility corridor-style or other shaped enclosed room, preferably one smaller than the square footage that requires the necessity for any building permit.
That way all three meters may end up INSIDE the house envelope, with a burglar proof viewing window for same and of course with the gas meter located the requisite distance away from the electrical meter and water meter, as per laws.
What would Gandhi do?
So, after three plus years of fighting, it seems the only solution is to go off grid, pay the fees, or get a smart meter? Just like day one without the registered mail document fest?
“To sum it up: Throughout the past three years, we have endured a
seemingly endless war of psychological control: Hydro has consistently
made mutually contradictory and mutually exclusive statements with
regards to smart meter installations on the homes of those who are
lawfully stating their Claim of Right (www.bc-freedom.com), and their refusal to give away their privately owned analogue meter.”
And?………..Can someone explain how we get a successful and favourable resolution to this nightmare? Or is this just a Sisyphean endeavour?
I appreciate that many people have put much time and effort into this battle, I just don’t see an end to it and have no intention of spending the rest of my days on a pointless windmill tilt, based on the misguided and ridiculously optimistic delusions of progress.
Time for a reality check folks. Is there ANY way to win this? Really?
DEER CAUGHT IN SMART GRID HEADLIGHTS versus VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY AND FREEDOM FROM CONTROL .
WHEN THE GOING GETS UGLY, THE RESILIENT DON;T WHINE, THEY GET GOING.
If anyone still cannot grasp that this elder is the perfect example of a clear win, then maybe those on whom this obvious fact is lost need to learn how to think more like a winner? She clearly visualized ahead what winning is, and she went for it. More “power” to her.
This Fanny Bay 71 year old beat the utility at their own game. She pocketed the fees rather than pay them to stay safe. Those fees paid for at least one solar battery instead. She bought a small system in keeping with her disciplined life. She spent 50 days in the dark and did not go nuts or panic. Instead, she followed through, she calmly got her own electrician, permit, solar guys, and got her own compact energy system up and running.
The pay back argument was ignored, insteAd she worked out how long she had left to live in peace.
The solar pay back approach is often the argument people use who resists change.
She is absolutely not alone. There are now wholesale solar panel non profits springing up, We are in the middle of an energy revolution. There are more and more others like her who are able to figure out that a bank loan for a solar system turns out to be less cost per month than their hydro bills were (and are about to go up ANOTHER 9% on April Fools Day (hydro’s little insider joke).
Others around the province have also withheld the black mail fees, and gone off grid. And in five years they too get to own their own energy systems.
Like any vehicle purchase, this woman’s car does not offer pay back, since cars slowly depreciate. However, the point is that it offers freedom of choice, autonomy, self sufficiency, mobility and life options.
Same goes for her solar system, energy autonomy. She recently added four more batteries to her solar storage bank.
That means she has a much longer stretch of time between sunny days to judiciously use the power she has collected from the sun and daylight.
The point is that this definition of winning is self evident. She is now content and independent, free to use as much or as little daylight powered energy as she wishes with her very own self limiting system. More to the point, she has embraced a new solar learning curve, which many half her age resist.
Who would fail to notice that this woman models what a winner looks like, clear for all to see.
She is not stumbling around in the dark, she no longer needs candles, she can use her fridge, stove, TV, she knows how many things she can run at once, she is energy conscientious, and conscious. Best of all, she is not getting bilked by corporate greed. Her frugality IS her freedom.
Better still, this is a health boost too, The physical transmission lines that connected her to the matrix were severed. Her friends have noticed that she clearly looks, feels, thinks and acts 100% better as a direct result of that physical disconnection from the conduit into the power matrix, ….. since it is a fact that anyone connected to the grid still can suffer harm and damage from dirtier than ever stray voltage, total harmonic distortion, and since smart grid dirty electricity travels around every home, with or without a smart meter on the home.
This elder already grows her own food, a life long habit. In fact, this life is totally enviable because she understands and embodies the concept of voluntary simplicity.
She knows what she needs and does not need. She is not a slave to frivolous, irrelevant wants which means she is also not a slave to the utilities that assume we cannot do without them.
Yet for far too many who are creatures of habit controlled by utilities, these simple kinds of life decisions seem too far fetched to even consider.
The universe helps those who help themselves. To me this woman is working with the universe, not against it. She did all those documents. That is why she kept a safe meter and did not pay bribes to keep what she already owns. But she also “gets” that she was dealing with criminals. Yet you read this and still do not get why, how, or why she has won? Winning is laid out clearly right in this article. Frugality of her use of energy is key to her shift to energy independence off grid. This woman “gets” it, The more addicted you are the harder it is to go cold turkey. She has trained herself for years to use a small fraction of what most use and yet be comfortable and content. She watched her own family as a child during the last part of WWII in Germany. She grows almost all of her own food. She was able to learn from experience. She was able to take away an important lesson, one that now serves her well and sees her through a different kind of war by corporations. She is not spoiled by temporary luxury.
What does she understand?
Anything that can be granted by corporate government or any corporation can be taken away again.
Anything that cultivates and increases one’s own dependency on an outside agency can be yanked back out of reach and cease to be affordable.
Grasping this simple concept of conservation, low energy usage of power, frugal use of propane for hot water and cooking and heat in winter, is what makes going off grid entirely within financial reach even for the elderly living on a pension.
Use far less. pay far less, conserve energy. All of that makes possible a smaller and more affordable micro-grid energy system.
The perks are many and include no loss of power when the rest of the world’s vulnerable thanks to the smart grid when it gets hacked (not “if”, only “when”).
Admirable are those who know how.
How to look out for oneself when the rest have protracted power outages, empty cupboards and no water.
How to continue to exist when those who trust utilities experience Enron style rolling black outs and get disconnected because by then the smart meter bills are too high to pay.
This lady has won because she does not get bilked and is not made sick, unlike those who perhaps cannot see that the writing is on the wall, utilities are no longer in the business of providing energy for profit, they are in the data extraction and rationing business now.
So she is way out in front,
– unlike those who resist change or militate against their own best interests,
– unlike those who trust government even when government is not trustworthy,
– unlike those who think it makes sense to reduce one’s carbon footprint by living in utter dependency in a multi res setting,
– unlike those who have no choice but to live in a rabbit warren or condo, or apartment, or who have no money, – unlike those who have had plenty of warning about where all of this is going but who prefer to stay in denial, – unlike those who instead simply do nothing even when they could but are like deer caught in smart grid headlights.
So this is what free will is all about.
ONe can certainly choose to remain umbilically tied to the grid.
One can use contract law to retain a safe meter even if ultimately no energy will any longer pass through it if you think for yourself instead of being compliant with the herd, who do not know best.
Even keeping a safe meter is not “nothing”, it is a kind of win. Refusal to pay the fees to keep your own meter is a win. Then using those withheld fees and a chunk of your future smart meter rapacious bill gouging savings to go off grid with a safely set up system, that is the ultimate win.
While true, this choice is not within reach for those who have no luck or whose life choices have led away from independence, still, there is winning.
And then there is whining.
Freedom is like that.
“If anyone still cannot grasp that this elder is the perfect example of a clear win”
A win? Yup, you are delusional.
A win would be holding Hydro to account.
A win would be keeping our mechanical meter and not paying a fee.
A win would be recognition of our rights.
Going off grid, while admirable, is a resounding defeat for all those fighting Hydro. Especially after the bc-freedom bombastic arrogance.
So, am I responding to Brian or Christiane?
I’m guessing Brian by the irrelevant blather based on erroneous assumptions and ALL CAPS.
BTW
I grow food, raise animals, hang laundry, heat home and water with wood, recycle……
I was far out in front long before the smart-meters became an issue.
So, are YOU paying the fee?
You’ve made great points and I agreed. As for myself I live in mission and I keep looking for others with the old meters. I can’t find any. I’m a senior and paying extortion fees to keep the power on. Going off the grid would be great. I find that hard to do because I need to know other people with the proper connections. I live alone and the only feed back I get is reading these blogs. I have adult children not that far but their life is hammered with wi fi and smeter and all the new appliances with zigbee chips. Yes I get ill there.My grandchildren have their health problems, “parents believe it’s growing pains” (my ass) children sleep with their ipads and all wireless stuff. It sadness me. They don’t listen to this grandma and the other grandma is riddled with cancer and lives close to a gwen/cell tower and uses all wireless stuff. I’m disappointed with bc-freedom for I feel he left his people hanging out on the line. Nice to read your blog.
Can the ad hominen attacks, it comes off sounding a bit like the world view of a professional victim, bitter, angry, impotent. The only beneficiary of infighting is hydro.
Better to adjust use of energy dramatically downward, which places purchase of enough panels and a small modest storage bank system and inverter within reach. Anyone with a single family home has some options, but only if they sort out needs from wants, choose a voluntarily simple lifestyle, decide to not pay hydro and instead put the utility extortion fees toward payment on a five year credit union loan, then invest the loan in a modest investment vehicle which defrays the already low interest on the loan. And in a little over five years those with the right kind of home could potentially own a modest off grid system. Proper monitoring and long term care of the multi battery bank means batteries may well last 20 or more years and possibly outlive those who make the shift off grid later in life. Meanwhile the monthly payments are less than most pay hydro per month.
There is no justice when anyone deals with almost any corporation, most are psychopathological. There is only the option of seeing that the grid will not sustain or remain reliable, and off grid is the future for those able to do so.
Those who do not look to resistance leaders to hold their hand forever are better off learning the bigger lesson, energy independence, YOUR hand on the switch instead of hydro’s, your understanding that the documents like COR are a declaration of autonomy and individuality will is the first step in making this kind of shift out of the matrix.
Fine. Again, what kWh/year will this hypothetical ~$2000 system provide?
What components are involved? How much for the inverter? Charge controller? Batteries? Panels?
20 year batteries? Exactly what brand and model? How much?
Now, how much power (kWh/day) would you need at minimum? (Dramatically downward)
Moreover, if the COR and other documents are effective, why go off grid?
If you are going off grid, why bother with the COR and other bits of paper.
BTW take a loan and then invest it? If that worked as suggested, we would all be millionaires.
I’ll help.
Not an endorsement, just for reference.
http://www.solarwholesaler.ca/product-category/solar-kits-rvgolf-off-grid-grid-tie/off-grid-solar-kits/
A 1kw system (~$5000 non CSA) is going to gather 1kwh per hour in perfect full summer sun conditions. Then there is conversion losses so around 0.75kWh to the end user. That is less than $0.15 worth of power at Hydro rates, legacy fee, taxes and riders included.
Kamloops insolation averages about 1 full sun hour per day in winter. So, can you get by on 750w per day for three or so months?
I am extremely frugal with power usage and still average about 8kWh per day.
The “Others around the province have also withheld the black mail fees, and gone off grid. And in five years they too get to own their own energy systems.” is clearly wishful thinking (to be kind).
Hello?
Ignorant? Check.
Arrogant? Check.
Delusional? Check.
Call it ad hominem if you like, but I notice you have neither answered or refuted what I have posted. ( BTW, “professional victim, bitter, angry, impotent” are what? Terms of endearment in your world?)
So I guess we can add cowardly and irresponsible too.
And please, do enlighten me as to the math that achieves,
“Others around the province have also withheld the black mail fees, and gone off grid. And in five years they too get to own their own energy systems.”
Seriously, what cost for system and what yearly kWh consumption? Or was that pulled from your rear?
Hmm. More crickets.
The math.
5 years X 6 billings X $64.80 = $1944
Please, do show me where I can get an adequate home solar power set up for under $2000.
You are off by about $12,000 – $18,000 for any realistic system.
Like I said, delusional. Arrogant, ignorant and delusional.
Anyone who is paying attention can see that the affordable energy boom is pretty much over. The boom bust energy bubble has burst, short supplies, energy rationing, all of this is already established elsewhere,
The repeat of Enron on a global scale is unfolding, hard times ahead, and out of reach electricity rates are imminent. The good old days are done.
How many will be able to afford where all of this is heading? The era of affordable energy provided at reasonable prices by any decent fair utility with integrity and overseen by regulations issuing from any honest government is coming to a close, if such a thing ever existed.
Ethics are in short supply. Corruption is mainstream. Greed is standard operating procedure. Transfer of ones assets to corporate coffers for what should be essential services is what has taken the place of any decency.
BC Hydro is just one more bankrupt about to be privatized corporation which does the bidding of her majesty Inc, and a career in government is not for the selfless. Most politicians are now globalists and have little to no allegiance to any country in which they operate. Corporations are the new government. And governments are indistinguishable from utilities.
On top of that the new paradigm is for any beholden customer to pay far more to get far less.
What kind of future can be imagined for life lived on the grid?
The old concept of energy provision, use more pay more, use less, pay less, has since been turned on its head. Everyone entered the green virtue olympics and tried ever so hard to conserve, only to find out that they have been had, taken to the corporate cleaners, and must pay ever higher rates for a lottery style rationed system.
The utility has taken over your home, your meter base, your service panel, your appliances. And fools rush in, the word smart does not mean the customer. It never did.
The servant is now the master. energy has ceased to be a service. It is a mechanism of control and refusal for those dependent on it.
From any utility’s perspective, there is no future in energy provision to a customer base. The future is all about trillion dollar data extraction. Coming here soon … what they already have up and running elsewhere, carbon ration cards. When your credits are used up, your heat goes off remotely, your fridge is turned down remotely.
Knowing when it is time to bail out of the matrix is paramount. I think this woman knows that the good times never last and lean times come sooner, with the good time running in shorter and shorter cycles. WWII… Looks like she is just old enough to remember the last go round and years of post war rationing, very very lean times they had in Europe and Britain, for years after that war. She deserves admiration for leaving the classic abuser, the utility and the government that determines its every move, and for doing so just in the nick of time.
“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
Machiavelli’s The Prince
Enter corporate governance.
Buying into dystopian narratives got all of us to this point where corporations could conveniently emerge to represent themselves as the sole answer to the problems they themselves invented, in collusion with government, which is also corporate. Those who believe they are sinners are complicit in allowing themselves to get to the point where a global smart grid microwave blanket could be pitched as the greenest possible answer to false scarcity fear mongering.
Microwaves are radar. Radar is lethal. Wireless RF antennas sited on private property sand any permit are illegal.
But few object effectively.
False scarcity holds to ransom those who “buy in” by seducing them into believing in that artificially orchestrated idea of imminent scarcity of life’s essentials. In reality, the capacity exists to create and maintain abundance, but the political will to do so wanes and withers, since there is no big money in pursing abundance.
Manufactured scarcity intentionally increases the cost of all essentials while at the same time it limits the production (spilling excess water over the dams) and supply of goods and services which would otherwise be plentiful and inexpensive.
Clean energy? Demand management of the customers? How was it so easy to slip this through?
Crisis and disaster based capitalism.
Yet in just the same way that Arnie arranged to bankrupt California by outsourcing energy production and them buying it back at inflated rates, so too did his buddy Gordo arrange the same thing.
Despite abundance of energy, Hydro customers pay for coal fired gas every single night, bought fro alberta by BC Hydro,
BC has the cleanest energy in North America.
Meanwhile, trade agreements sell out sovereign rights, the Hydro dams owned by BC residents are slated to redirect BC Hydro dam water to the US to feed its ever more thirsty demands for ever more BC water.
False shortages of pretty much everything are useful scams which perpetuate that deep seated instinctual “fear of not having enough”, which in turn keeps those susceptible to fear running in circles inside cages, in cubicles, in dead end hamster wheel jobs. The cultivated illusion of scarcity works well to divide people and communities and allows those who generate that illusion to gain far more power.
Even a hint of (false) scarcity makes those who succumb to it fight with each other over things they might otherwise share, as they buy in to the carefully manufactured illusion that there “isn’t enough to go around.” This has the secondary effect of keeping the vast majority from looking “up” at who is pulling the strings.
The Tiny Dot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6b70TUbdfs
Corrections:
Wireless corporate rf antennas sited on private property for corporate gain SANS any siting permit are illegal.
BC Hydro buys coal fired electricity from Alberta every night
Off grid simplicity, it can be done.
It can even be done affordably. And it is considered to be a very good investment for enhancing one’s property values considerably, far more than the cost of the system.
It is all about being prepared to make one rather large up front investment which is equivalent to about ten years of analogue meter bills, the kind people who conserve energy used to get, before smart meters changed all that.
In smart meter dollars, that is about five years of smart meter bills at the present rate, though this is estimated prior to what is coming down the track, time-of-use, rolling black outs, runaway bills, remote disconnections, all those obstacles and gouging and costly hoops which post grid-ites no longer have to jump through or even consider.
And of course the perks include, but are not limited to, no more black outs, and no more utility bills.
For use for those four or so low arc sun and BC dark cloud months each year, Ms Knopp (as well as this writer, of a similar age,) later bought a handy dandy Honda EU generator to top up the battery bank every few days from Nov thru Feb.
That was after we were so inspired by her story and became fellow off-grid-ites.
True, the greatest cost is a pure sine wave magnum inverter, but otherwise, this shift to freedom cost less than the cost of a modest car and it provides every bit as much freedom if not more.
If one finds a savvy solo solar electrician and buys those wholesale 250 watt jinko poly panels offered by that non profit society at gabenergy dot net, then augmented by an affordable 2nd hand forklift battery at auction, I can attest that a very modest off grid system is well within reach for seniors on a fixed income, and is achievable for about a third of the price of any “don’t lift a finger” aka “turnkey” system, the kind that is supplied and installed by a reputable company.
We kept our claimed and owned mechanical meter as a genius designed fond relic.
It serves as a paper weight and a lovely reminder that timing is everything and defecting from conventional thinking is rather different than simply passively being forced to be disconnected – or put in harm’s way if not. Lloyd’s of London set the standard for all insurance when they ceased to insure anything wireless beginning in 2010 or earlier. Food for thought, isn’t it? What do THEY know and aren’t telling the rest of us?
Off grid is an adventure, not a punishment. Where there is a will, there is a way.
We love this as it is clearly a change for the better and we have learned many new fruitful energy management habits to boot.
Being your own power contractor is delightful.
We could not possibly be more content.