Tinfoil hats win one at your expense

Everything the Arizona Corporation Commission needed to know about smart meters walked in on one woman's head.

A Scottsdale woman wore a bicycle helmet to a recent hearing to decide whether Arizona Public Service could charge extra to customers who reject the smart meters, which transmit usage information so employees no longer have to go house to house. The helmet was covered in tin foil and patterned cloth, which the woman said protected her from radio frequencies.

An actual tinfoil hat could not be more symbolic of the crowd that is clamoring not only to keep the meters off their property, but to have them banned nationwide.

The meters pose a danger to human health, they claim, a message they spread via website to laptops connected to wireless networks and through calls on cell phones. The large contingent that drove to the hearing from Sedona and Prescott may have listened to their car radios on the way.

Smart meters are hardly the only source of radio waves passing through our homes and bodies. They're not even a major source.

And yet the corporation commission not only humored these people, it took them seriously.

"I suspect everyone up here who is not here to protest smart meters is sitting here thinking about their own health," said Commissioner Gary Pierce, who noted he had checked to see if his grandchildren slept near one.

Incredible.

And then, the commission voted unanimously to allow APS to charge a token $5 per month to cover the cost of dispatching readers to those customers who reject smart meters. Customers who return an already installed meter will be charged $50.

APS calculated it would cost about $20 per customer to manually read meters. That means the vast majority of level-headed customers will pick up most of the costs.

"Socializing" costs, as Pierce refers to this practice, may be defensible when a societal good is advanced, as through encouraging efficiency or even rooftop solar. Those who do not participate still gain benefits.

But to support wacky conspiracy theories? That's just as ridiculous and ineffective as a tinfoil helmet.