Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryland
I've sat in a Prius with the gauges in hand to measure EMF
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What gauges were those, a gaussmeter? A compass? a needle in a bowl of water?
I've had formal training in measuring EMFs and RF radiation and determining safe distances for controlled exposure and uncontrolled exposure. Anyone concerned about the level of EMFs in their Prius is either seriously under-informed or a complete raving lunatic. I'm hoping for most people it's the former. Given the prevelence of EMFs in the industrialized world, and that the Prius' steel body works as a Faraday cage, you'll find the overall exposure to electromagnetic fields much lower INSIDE the car than OUTSIDE. It works so well, in fact, that there is no FCC mandated rules concerning the power levels of mobile radio installations.. in other words, if you installed a big radio transmitter on your car, you wouldn't be able to supply it enough power to create a field large enough to worry about inside the car due to the shielding of the vehicle body. Also realize the strength of the field falls off at the inverse square of distance from the source. So if you double the distance, the strength will be 1/4. At the power levels inside the Prius, you are talking about being in negligible numbers within a few inches. I'm willing to bet even close proximity is well below acceptable limits.
I'm willing to bet the 50k-100k watt AM stations in most cities or the 60Hz power grid are subjecting you to a much larger power density in your everyday activities than you are receiving inside your Prius. I'd put money it's lower overall inside the car.
With that said.. People have been working in high RF and EMF environments for over 100 years now, enough to know that the only major danger is that of tissue heating.. that's just not going to happen in a Prius. Neither is your wifi going to have any effect. Safe exposure levels drop with increased frequency, however, and I do think it's prudent to limit cellphone usage (usually in the low microwave range) when you are holding it right against your head until we see some more information on that. But for low frequency fields, we've got tons and tons of data to know exactly what the effects will be- Negligible for most of humanity.