GE’s smart-meter profiteering

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt must be channeling SNL’s Chico Escuela these days as:

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Obama stimulus been berry, berry good to GE.

GE announced today that utility giant American Electric Power (AEP) will purchase 110,000 smart meters from GE. And just how is AEP managing to buy all these smart meters? President Obama and Congress are making us pay for them. On Sep. 1, AEP applied to the Department of Energy for $75 million in federal stimulus money for the smart meter purchase. It’s a good thing that GE’s Immelt sits on Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board — how else would the Department of Energy know to direct smart meter purchases to GE? Of course, AEP isn’t the only conduit for sending federal stimulus money to GE. So far about 50 utilities have applied to DOE for a piece of the almost $4 billion in stimulus money earmarked for smart meter projects. Did we mention:

Obama stimulus been berry, berry good to GE.

BTW, the $75 million will create about 500 jobs over a three year period, says AEP — why that’s only $150,000 per job in Ohio where the average income is slightly less than $48,000.