Just an update on South Africa: Blackouts continue, and the people are not happy:
These are being describes as the worst blackouts since the ANC came into power in 1994.
Residents block roads in Tembisa in South Africa against rising prices, high living costs and water and electricity cuts.#SouthAfrica #Tembisa #Protest #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/GknLuNtGR8
— We Are Protestors (@WeAreProtestors) July 20, 2022
Some are so desperate for electricity they are rewiring substations and ending up in hospital:
Mini substation blows up in face of man trying to illegally reconnect it
Reeshni Chaslyn Chetty, The South African
A Johannesburg man who tried to illegally reconnect electricity faced injuries after he allegedly opened an electricity substation and it blew up in his face.
The spokesperson revealed that there is a ‘serious problem’ of vandalism of infrastructure in the City. This includes incidents where residents attempt to illegally operate the electricity network – they are often aided by unqualified electricians and try to reconnect or make illegal connections.
We hope he is OK.
These are eight hour regular rolling blackouts. People have Apps on the phone to tell them when their next blackout starts. People on twitter are telling others to go home early from work so they can use electricity before it runs out. They say, don’t worry, your boss won’t mind, they need to get home early too!
Rolling blackouts South Africa | Eskom
Others are showing photos of haircuts, interrupted. Half heads shaven.
Blackout hair.
According to CEO Andre de Ruyter the Board of Eskom (the main electricity network) has no engineer, no chartered accountant, and no experienced industrialist and businessman on the board. (Perhaps they have diversity instead, just not the right kind?)
Apparently they are burning diesel to keep the lights on (such as they can).
To bridge the severe gap in supply, Eskom is relying on backup gas turbines that blast through 14 litres of diesel (3.7 gallons) per second. Seven of these turbines were in operation Friday. The cost of using diesel as a substitute fuel has been stratospheric. Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said the company spent 1.54 billion rand ($93.8 million) in June alone — more than double its original budget. It has also spent more than double its annual budget for diesel only halfway into the year.
Meanwhile, not surprisingly mental health is not too chipper:
Load shedding: South Africa’s power cuts take a toll on mental health
by AFP Wire Service
You can’t do your work because there’s no power. You eat late and bolt your food before the lights fail. And then to be at home, in the utter dark, gives you the creeps. As blackouts (popularly referred to as load shedding) unfurl across South Africa, triggered by problems that have overwhelmed its energy provider, stress is taking a mounting toll on mental health, experts say.
“People are frustrated, some (are) angry, some are experiencing symptoms” of post-traumatic stress disorder, said Sinqobile Aderinoye, a psychologist in Johannesburg. “The consistent on-and-off of the electric grid is creating an air of disillusionment.”
Anxiety, depression and other disorders were already up almost two-thirds since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Cheryl Johnston, a Johannesburg-based psychologist
Officials are hinting that they might keep using some coal:
Eskom May Use Coal for Longer as South Africa Develops Renewables
..
Meanwhile on #blackouts are comments like this:
Ganymede: I feel your stress. Last Thursday we had a “technical fault” that lasted 26 hours with us in the dark. When that was finally fixed, we’re due for loadshedding two hours from then. This country is rough now
Miguel Valdoleiros: @Eskom_SA How about actually leaving the power on when there is no load shedding. We had no power since 6 last night, came back for 2 hours this morning and then off again. Get your shit in order!
Mduduzi Ngwenya:
So I reside in Boksburg #WindmillPark . Our schedule shows we pending loadshedding from 16:00 today. Taking into account that we have not had electricity for almost an hour now, are we now going to also fall into the bracket of loadshedding when it starts?
In other South African news:
Javier Blas says: OIL MARKET: The only operating oil refinery in South Africa was forced to shut down this weekend after it **ran out of crude** (yes, you read that just fine: the refinery completely ran out of crude)
Sasol declares force majeure as stalled oil shipments shut down Natref
That can’t be good.
Yet Australia is falling behind the rest of the world. Lucky we have Albo who is trying to catch up to this misery. What was Australia’s position again? No 1 for coal exports, No.1 for Uranium reserves and No. 5 for gas reserves or something like that.
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I wonder does Promit Mukherjee, ReutersJOHANNESBURG, enjoy his/her share of the rolling blackouts? He/she is obviously completely stupid blaming coal for the present catastrophe. Much like here where run down coal plants are blamed for no wind and less sun. These people are worse than crazy they are either dangerously stupid or they are working for our enemies because we are not the beneficiaries of the current plans but we do suffer meanwhile China streaks ahead.
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Okay let’s see how the plan is progressing.
Europe, the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia have been de-industrialised, renewablised and left with smashed education and health systems, huge national debt and leadership in name only.
Apart from the COVID19 whodeedoodee which was used to send us all to home detention the resulting small business damage was horrific but cunningly covered up by Scomos Jobbykeeper and Jobbyseeker.
Now the cover up is over; as a nation we have to pay off Scomos borrowings for these schemes.
One trillion dollars, or aud$40,000 for every man woman child and baby to pay off.
Part of that debt is for the essential jabs purchased from big Pharma and the fifty one million spares, just in case.
Two questions, who profited, kickbacks and then how do we recover and punish the wrongdoers.
South Africa is just the latest example of how sprinkles of pixy dust can only work for so long before crushing reality arrives on the doorstep.
Sadly, there is a price to pay for all this.
Young men especially are finding it difficult to face life and this was reinforced last night by an acquaintance.
He was walking in a local park and came upon a scene that turned his stomach.
It involved a 45 year old man, a tree and a length of electrical cable.
Our leaders should be ashamed of what they’ve done to this nation.
The new world Elites have won.
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KK:
Not quite. The current hysteria is “the Elites” desperately trying to keep the plan going, in the face of public revolts. But every time they get one under control another breaks out.
And in bad news (for them) Russia has restarted sending gas to Germany through Nordstream one. Rather stuffs their chance of getting Germany shut down. And Russia and The Ukraine are talking about getting more wheat out through the Black Sea.
The “Elites” must feel like Sisyphus
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the founder and king of Ephyra. Zeus punished him for cheating death twice by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity.
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The government doesn’t care for those people, its male citizens, they are in fact the evil doers in society. If that statement is true or not doesn’t matter, what does matter is this is how people feel when they reach that stage. The consequences are fatal.
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Remember when barbers had manual clippers? Never mind, a half-shaven head can be a look, too.
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I doubt many of todays barbers have seen manual clippers. A bit like asking a young mechanic to get a car with a distributor and points running.
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Sith Effrika has obvious challenges we do not have (and that must not be mentioned in polite company of course) but when you look at them, then consider Australia, the Latin phrase “Quo Vadis” must come to mind.
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A lot of the problem of South African energy starvation is not necessarily due to unreliables (solar and wind) but extreme incompetence in managing, or failing to manage, existing proper coal power stations. They also have some gas power stations and hydro which are no doubt also badly managed. My understanding is that the nuclear power station is competently managed by French contractors.
What is remarkable is that despite 28 years of neglect, including a failure of scheduled maintenance and corruption with the coal supply meaning coal was delivered with rocks in it to “bulk it up”, the coal power stations continue to run at all, albeit in a deficient state.
Solar and wind unreliables wouldn’t even last close to that, with or without maintenance. And in any case, whether they work or not, they don’t contribute much to the grid and when they do, it’s random so they are effectively useless. Actually, worse than useless.
Coal, gas, nuclear and hydro plant are proper engineering solutions to real engineering problems, that is, cheap, reliable power production.
Solar and wind plant are built for the purpose of harvesting subsidies, not to be solutions to actual engineering problems, that is, production of cheap, reliable power.
It’s a cruel imposition for rich white Westerners to be telling South Africa that the solution to their problem is more unreliables. They don’t work in the West where we have competent management (as far as it goes), why would they work in SA where competent management is essentially non-existent?
Google “renewables in south africa” to see how clueless white Westerners are telling SA that their energy should come from more unreliables.
I won’t start a discussion on the reasons for lack of management competence, I’ll just leave it at that.
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Can we send our Chris Bowen to what used to be South Africa. He’d fit right in. After all he also insists that more renewables are essential to Australia’s energy challenges.
I d be prepared to swap him for the real unemployed electrical engineers who built South Africa’s energy grid, that up until 28 years ago supplied 70% of all of electricity generated on the African continent!
Can’t employ white men to fix the fup that is today’s South africa. Instead the government’ cadres are employed for the purpose of stealing as much as possible!
No doubt they’ll be showered with more $$$$ billions to encourage closure of coal plants & employment of more unreliables. They’ve already got plenty of those, I’m referring to unreliable energy!
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All they have to do in SA is more of the same and all the exit of coal will just happen by itself, voila. !
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“the real unemployed electrical engineers who built South Africa’s energy grid,”
They’re already in Canada, WA and NZ…
The wife’s sister & family stayed there, business owners, but readied an exit plan in the Seychelles. Looks like its time to cut their losses and use it.
The blek Govt is showing itself to be as incompetent as any other in Africa, it just had more capital to spend before it became noticeable.
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16 years ago on a visit to NZ (not Net Zero !!) I met a sports shop owner in Picton who had formerly run a safari business in Zimbabwe until Mugabe set the country on the road to ruin.
I asked them why they hadn’t relocated to South Africa, and their reply was that they didn’t want to go through the same process in 20 years time and decided to move to NZ where they were very happy leading a good life.
In spite of NZ troubles (both sorts) they look to have made the right decision.
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When I lived in QLD there was an interview published in the local newspaper with a family who escaped from Zimbabwe with almost nothing, they had to escape from the family farm after a series of attacks on family members by activists who believed that white skin people had no right to the land they owned and farmed. The stories about what the family experienced were horrifying.
The final that forced them to leave was a son who did not return within a reasonable amount of time based on his ETA. He did answer radio calls to his 4WD from the house. His father and others went to look for him and found him lying near a gate beaten to a pulp.
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Graham, thanks so much for the neologism “fup”. Along with “fustercluck” I’ll use it from now on…and only some will get what it means. 🙂
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” I won’t start a discussion on the reasons” Perhaps this is what you have in mind. “nepotism refers to the employment of relatives or close friends regardless of their merits and abilities.” When I was last in South Africa (about 10 years ago) I noticed the decline of Kruger National Park since my previous three visits. There was only one single white employee left that we met, and we travelled the entire length from south to north. While we were there, we came across a terrible sight of two slaughtered rhino beside the road with their horns hacked off. The culprit turned out to be one of the “new” park rangers which is something that would have been totally unthinkable only just a few years before.
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David – thanks for that – I spent 18 years in engineering in South Africa before coming to Aus. We also saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave 30 years ago (and not because of the change of government). I worked on the Sasol II plant (oil from coal) that was needed when the world threatened SA with oil sanctions. They built it over the top of the coal seams that were mined to supply it. They have well over 300 years of coal in the ground for much of which we built a coal terminal at Richards Bay to export to Japan. We have no beef with the people of South Africa of all races – we counted a wide range of people amongst our friends and we still have many friends there – but they have been telling us the tale of woe of load shedding and unexpected long blackouts for some time. My cousins also lived in Zimbabwe and emigrated to Perth WA with next to nothing in their pockets due to the rampant inflation in that country that had eliminated their savings. Lets hope that our government learns something from these disasters around the world and comes to its senses in time. My back up diesel generator is ready to go in case they dont!
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Always great to hear from people who have lived experience. We are fortunate to have many South African friends here in Perth, and some from Zimbabwe too. They are great people with a big view of history and an acute sense of the value of civilization.
Many of them are still patriotic supporters about their former homelands, even as they are aware of the current awful situation.
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“Bulking it up”.
I wonder if we can publish this in 2022 without getting put in gaol. This from Australia’s most illustrious poet, A. B. Paterson. The natives get even!
https://www.poeticous.com/banjo-paterson/the-maori-s-wool
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I think the solution to South Africa’s energy problem has to be something that requires little or no maintenance or can be managed by remote control or by contractors.
A sealed, small modular nuclear reactor on site at the existing nuclear plant would be good. They can be designed for little or no maintenance and remote monitoring and control. There are plenty of commercial designs in the pipeline but none yet available however.
Employing outside contractors to maintain and run existing coal power stations would also be an idea. As Australia shuts down our power grid, we will have plenty of people who know how to repair and run a coal power station that could do that job.
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However, even if the power can be produced, people need to stop stealing power via unauthorised connections or stealing cables for scrap.
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David, do you really think that an unemployed Australian electrical engineer would chance his arm – and that of his family – in today’s South Africa?
When Australia shuts down its coal fired power grid the people who know how to run it will get on with their lives doing other very positive and constructive things in Australia. That’s the nature of competence.
Why would anybody sentence themselves to a life of misery in Africa – South or otherwise?
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How many westerners would be willing to live and work in SA for any amount of money?
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Plenty, it happens all around the world. Whether you would get any from the required talent pool is another thing.
Were I used to work there was a sliding scale of “hardship allowance” depending on the cr@piness of where you got sent. In the mid 90s the septics used to get the entry level allowance for coming to Oz. Something to do with not having 150 channels of cable drivel or any Walmarts I think. SA would be quite juicy.
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Competent Americans working in Australia in those days is a vastly different kettle of fish to working in the current corrupt, violent and anti-Western failed states of Africa.
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South Africa. Another on line real time experiment for Australia to monitor.
Maybe all we need is a ‘Just Energy Transition Department’ as Eskom has. Bowen to the rescue, once again, coming to a theatre near you soon. A theatre of madness that is.
The Federal LayBore Guv’ment has already wobbled on the Election Promise to reduce electricity prices by $$$$$. Next it will need to be this lunatic Emissions target of 43% (and why exactly 43%?) as no amount of alleged Renewables without 24/7 Fossil Fuel Power Station support can ever achieve it.
Australia is already way less than ‘Net Zero’ anyway as people like Viv Forbes have shown that the Australian Environment absorbs more CO2 than Man (Person) made activity generates.
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43% makes it look like you have studied it, thought about it and there are all kinds of sciencey calculations to back it up, rather than a focus groups answer to waddya think is a good number?
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…and not just an experiment regarding energy. They have been the canary in the coal mine since ’94 regarding a lot of the social engineering issues that’s currently being implemented across the Western World and none of it delivered a (in cahoots with their benefit to society. At least the “democratic system” over there is slightly less restrictive than what you find in most Western Countries, so if the population really wake up they can turn this stuff around quickly. Over here the duopoly has made things so watertight (in cahoots with the public sector that actually run the joint) that people can openly talk on TV about “Dutton proofing” certain goals and ambitions (i.e. make it so restrictive that future governments cannot reverse it even if the population want them to) and get applauded for it. We are in for a tough time…
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Like in fracking being banned under the Vicdanistan Constitution or nuclear power being banned under federal legislation…
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Not that banned!
“The United Kingdom will deploy a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in a bid to contain China’s influence in the region, UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported on Friday.
The AUKUS partnership, established in September 2021, aims at providing Australia with its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, with at least eight submarines planned to be delivered. Russia and China have raised concerns about the security challenges in the region stemming from the AUKUS establishment, saying that could result in the collapse of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.”
“Australia, the US, and UK announced the trilateral AUKUS pact last September. Under the terms of the deal, Australia will build advanced nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs). The bloc’s members also agreed to cooperate on the production of nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons.”
Maybe no nuclear for the peasants, but the military will be protecting the parasites with it..
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Last night on the Sky News channel, Piers Morgan had a young man and woman who seemed to be organisers of a protest that blocked a major roadway in the UK. The protest was to get the British Government to stop drilling for oil. He also had another woman who had been unable to get to her mother’s funeral because of the traffic delays on the roadway.
At one stage Piers asked the protesters what they would say to the relatives of people who died because they were caught in a traffic jam and unable to get treatment. The young man said that’s hypothetical. He went on to say drilling for oil must be stopped or billions of people are going to die.
Meanwhile, the real world, humans have adapted to living in hot climates through a variety of means including reliable energy sources, and billions could die by forcing them to use unreliable energy sources
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Whether its XR protestors or Green politicians its now a race to tell the biggest climate change “porkies” as much as they can – and they don’t get irony.
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The cruelty of the Left has no limits.
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You could say the same about any protest, the Canadian truckers, the Dutch farmers ??
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Philip, only up to a point. I saw many videos of the Canadian Truckers where they left one lane open for other traffic, where they cleaned the streets of rubbish, fed the homeless, and stopped the hocking at night. They were keenly aware of the needs of other citizens. The worst repercussions for businesses in the centre of Ottawa was directly from Trudeau’s backlash against even a $10 donation.
Remember, all Trudeau had to do to stop those protests was to say that truck drivers didn’t have to get an injection of a risky experimental drug in order to cross the border.
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At the time of the trucker protests I was at a dinner with some friends who had a Canadian relative staying who was a long standing female lawyer who insisted that Justin Trudeau was right in his actions as the protesters were blocking the roads.
Unfortunately at the time I didn’t have the information to gainsay her, but she was very insistent that my view was wrong and the best I could accomplish was to agree to disagree.
But it did give me an inkling of the mindset that the truckers were up against.
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And the Lawyer may have been very sincere, but likely all she knew was what CBC had deigned to tell her.
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Adaption to climate. Easy. We know how to build cottages, but less so larger buildings that with minimal external operating energy inputs are comfortable throughout the year. We just don’t want to. I was an architect. I know!
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Exactly Daffy.
That’s how our forebears managed the seasons all those years ago. That’s why governments put Heritage Orders on those old homes. They preserve the technology that worked at a time when air-con and central heating was yet to arrive. However, the wokesters just think they’re museum pieces, as they try to survive in their little studio apartments in the inner-city high rise towers.
Verandahs. High ceilings. Large under-roof spaces betwixt ceiling and corrugated iron. A bit of height above the ground for air-flow. Wood-fired “wonder-heats” in the lounge. Slow combustion ovens in the kitchen with piping into the hot water tank. Chip or Kero water heaters in the shower-room as a back up.
It worked then. It works now. But not for the woke it won’t. They’re too dumb.
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At least their Loadshedding Schedule looks nice and neat.
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And they can’t even stick to that…
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This exactly what’s going happen in Australia. Not if but when. We now have a government with no plans to build reliable 24/7 baseload power supply, instead wavy arms Bowen and his sun mirrors and wind mills revolution. When the proverbial hits the fan, you can’t coal fired power stations overnight.
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Meant to be a comment to KK #3
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Carbon Guru Greg Combet is back to guide us through these uncertain times.
News flash…. it’s all the former Coalition govts fault.
Ok then, now we can move forward. 🙂
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Jo has nailed it with the likely diversity in the management of Eskom. As noted previously by another contributor, the AEMO board is similarly qualified and similarly diverse. Pat yourselves on the backs, peeps, and enjoy your Friday night in fine company, virtue signalling about how you are righting past wrongs.
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I received this from a friend in Cape Town about 2 or 3 weeks ago – and at that time they had just gone onto Stage 6.
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And Stage Nine will be to exit Stage Left and ‘Goodnight Vienna’ to you all.
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Interesting NuThink.
Stage Eight is when they shed 8000MW.
But:
They supposedly have 8000MW of unreliables.
And all totally useless.
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There is not a single African country, including those never colonised by Europeans such as Liberia and Ethiopia that is functional to any modern standard.
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Democracy is wonderful! You get what you voted for.
It was all obvious when the Rhodies started coming down to RSA with amazing stories in the 70s and then people started emigrating. RSA lasted longer than I thought it would.
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It didn’t last half as long as it would appear. It’s just the world’s media steadfastly refused to report on it honestly, no doubt for fear of appearing racist.
I visited around twenty years ago and, even then, it was already a lawless, dysfunctional and violent place.
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And no African country have ever managed to turn themselves around once they started descending into corruption, lawlessness, chaos and violence.
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Apart from anything else, to even attempt to replace just one single, compact power station with unreliables involving thousands or tens of thousands of windmills, tens or hundreds of sq kms of solar panels and infeasibly huge batteries means the management and maintenance effort increases from just one plant, to thousands of installations spread over a wide area.
They can’t maintain or manage just one thing.
There’s no way they can maintain or manage thousands.
It’s just not going to happen!
By insisting that SA has unreliables means that in practice you are denying them the use of any electricity whatsoever.
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Insane and entirely predictable.
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For South Africa (SA) look to the other SA (South Australia) being next.
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I saw the Rugby last weekend. Crowd full of white people looking very content. I think they live in moneyed enclaves behind a thin veneer
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I sometimes wonder why more dont pack up and leave. They must have a strong attachment to homeland and a belief that they and theirs will be alright. My 30 something daughter has a friend in SA she has known via the Internet for 20 years, they meet for the first time next year. Both the SA parents have dual citizenship but have decided to remain in SA even now in retirement. Just leaving is easy to talk about I guess but harder to actually do for many.
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It’s hard (speaking from experience) to pack up and move. You always stuff up one generations life in the process. Neil Diamond’s “I am, I said” comes to mind.
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Australia refused to allow the SA farmers to come here, even though they were and remain victims of extreme racial discrimination and violence. Unlike most immigrants or refugees coming to Australia, they would have rapidly assimilated and gone straight to work, not being welfare dependent for life.
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Age and economics are against many.. You can’t access welfare in most countries if you are middle-aged (Aussie included) and whites aren’t allowed to be refugees. Certainly many of the children of the Boomers have left for other countries, usually the Commonwealth, but its is difficult for the parents unless the children pay to look after them.
The Rand doesn’t help, you can be a millionaire in RSA but it doesn’t go far overseas.
A mate that used to work for me there has left three times, NZ twice and Canada, but each time his wife wanted to return. She’s never worked and missed her social circle, some of the kids stayed, and you can’t afford servants when Welfare States pay those people to do nothing.
Bluntly, you can’t drag a culture up 1000years in 100years, and while the Whites have tried it all around the world, the natives have never really succeeded. As my wife has always said, ‘democracy is not for Africa’..
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Whites aren’t allowed to be refugees UNLESS its other whites that made them refugees. There seems to be plenty of support for Ukrainian refugees, because their plight can be blamed on evil Russians and Putin (whites). With white refugees from SA they prompt an uncomfortable question (for westerners) which is: Who victimized them and turned them into refugees?
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I wonder what “advice” Australia received from the UN HCR about South Africans seeking asylum in Australia.
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Worked with few South Africans when I was younger but they had moved early and sometimes not driven by impending collapse.
Even back then (90s) things werent great. Something one guy said over lunch stuck with me “you know what I like about Australia? you can go on a picnic and not have to think about firearms and ammo”
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During a visit to SA on business a host invited me to spend the weekend at the famous Sun City Resort (Golf Club, Casino and many other attractions) and rented a small people mover to drive several people to the Resort. We were shown a hand gun that was in the passenger’s side front “glovebox”. Our host explained that it was a .38 snub nose police special Smith & Wesson originally designed for “crowd control” and he chose it because of the then serious penalties imposed for killing a hijacker. Apparently victims need to be badly hurt before retaliation is permitted, 1990s.
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It’s because it’s not whites doing the discrimination and violence, it doesn’t ‘count’.
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I get the impression that ‘back to the third world’ is not a good idea.
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Haiti anyone ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RDabgRidv4
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“Its Camden plant in Mpumalanga province, one in a fleet of aging stations, could close in 2027 instead of 2025, Mandy Rambharos, head of Eskom’s Just Energy Transition department, said in an online presentation. Keeping the plant open longer would allow the development of more renewables and is “not a life extension,” she said.”
A combination of Eskom wishful thinking and delusional logic. Just because you want to extend the life of that plant you havent been maintaining, that doesnt mean it will actually work when you want it you. You can “develop more renewables” whether the coal plant is open or shut ( as long as the coal plants in China that are needed to make them stay open) What you are saying is that you are way behind the game, and still playing the wrong game with “renewables”. It is most definitely a life extension , and nothing but a life extension. All the word games in the world dont change that basic fact.
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It’s an absolute joke. And even the more sound, supposedly level-headed, conservative groups over there who should know better are happy to beat the “unreliables only” drum to find an answer. Where have the smart people of society gone?
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This mess all started in the early 2000’s when the then (mostly white) management of ESKOM presented a blue print for the country’s energy needs into the future, with an outline of increased capacity needs (new plants needed to be built – remember these things take years to build) and associated costs to the Mbeki Government. Government didn’t like the costs as it was high and would eat into their hand-out programme. So the actions taken were to work all of that competent management out, replace them with ANC cronies and do nothing – well not nothing, they did introduce rife corruption, incompetence, state capture and theft. And now that the proverbial has gone in the fan, they reverted to putting a competent CEO in there. He happens to be white and is tasked with weeding out all of the corruption – he is being accused of being racist by all and sundry every 3 days.
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Four more people are rushed to hospital after burning COALS inside their home as the price of electricity soars
– Household rushed to hospital after sustaining carbon monoxide poisoning
– Emergency services called to Bedford Park home in Adelaide on Friday morning
– Four people were all feeling faint and taken to Flinders Medical Centre
– They had been attempting to warm their home with a charcoal burner
– Meanwhile family of six taken to Westmead Hospital with monoxide poisoning
– Paramedics were called to Merrylands home in Sydney on Tuesday morning
– They arrived to find entire family sick after warming home with charcoal BBQ
– Najem Nawaseri said he found his 13-year-old son vomiting before calling 000
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It’s inexcusable for people to freeze in their own homes in Australia.
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Would burning gas inside cause similar issues? Or natural gas doesn’t give off carbon monoxide?
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A correctly designed combustion system will not give off significant CO. And in any case is usually flued.
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Burning NG is a clean, rather tight design. Air and NG are balanced to produce the minimum CO level. But, they do produce it.
Burning coal produces lots and lots of bad stuff including CO. Much more dangerous.
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I can see no chance of any common sense being bought to bear in Australia.
We definitely face power rationing as soon as the next one or two coal power stations are destroyed, although they might be invisibly replaced with diesel generators to cover things up for a while and if election are close.
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Gas fired power stations are the most likely option.
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If any will be allowed to be built in this climate of climate fever.
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Even though coal is at the site.
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It is madness, Mount Piper is ideally situated and Energy Australia is going to close it down. There is talk that they may replace it with gas fired power.
So many voters believe in global warming, its going to be hard convincing them that renewables won’t keep the lights on. Still, there is hope that the climate wars will erupt in parliament and we’ll win.
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The Morrison Government proposed 2 gas fired generators for NSW but so far only 1 for the Hunter Valley has been approved by the NSW Coalition Government.
Also proposed were 1 gas fired generator for VIC and 1 for SEQ plus 1 coal fired power station for NQ with Federal Government prepared to underwrite the finance for a private sector investor. None have been approved by the Labor State governments.
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By the way, on tonight’s news Albanese Labor have cancelled Morrison Coalition funding set aside for fossil fuelled generator projects.
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Geez, these guys are bigger F’wits than i thought,.. and all those dumb a55 F’w1ts who voted Lab , Indy, etc, deserve to freeze in their beds this winter !
Maybe we need to take a lesson from Sri Lanka ?
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But we dont have enough gas, and it is too expensive !
….ger a grip, think logically, and use coal !
All that is needed is some political common sense and real leadership !
20
Which is why it probably won’t happen for a long time. They’ll talk about closing them, blame them for all our problems etc while quietly subsiding them to keep operating because we need them.
40
From the ABC-
Former carbon pricing mastermind Greg Combet backs proposed fix for Australia’s energy crisis.
But he said switching to an electricity system that ran on 100-per-cent renewable energy would take time and it was imperative not to let ideology get in the way of pragmatism.
30
Minister Combet was questioned on radio about the carbon tax and after attempting to change the subject he reluctantly admitted that ten per cent of the carbon tax revenue was being sent to the UN IPCC “green funds”, and that the Gillard Labor Government was planning to merge carbon tax with the EU emissions trading scheme in the not too distant future.
That trading scheme has since been accused of being involved in corrupt behaviour.
30
That’s unbelievable.
We must
UNEXIT.
40
Reminds me of that movie with Marlon Brando as top dog.
10
I have vivid memories of my two business trips to Seth Efrica (Jo’burg). Scary stuff.
70
Jo’burg is a sh!th0l3 and fortunately not representative of the whole country.
50
Ive travelled a bit in the third and second world, completely naive of the dangers around me. Im now xenophobic of such places. I wouldnt even go to New York.
40
During my last business based visit a company executive went to the company’s bank and was confronted by a gang of armed men and security guards chasing them, many shots were fired in the local shopping centre carpark.
A factory manager had one hand bandaged and when I asked how he had injured it, I thought it might have been a factory accident, he explained that while driving with a mate through a village in the bush an attempt was made to hijack the vehicle they were in, both of them had hand guns with them, stopped as directed and stood behind the doors with guns at the ready. The hijackers started firing guns but when the factory manager tried to return fire his gun would not work, and then he realised that a bullet had damaged his hand and his trigger finger. The gang ran away.
I would not like to live with the security precautions I observed at various homes I visited, business related people’s homes, protection against home invasion.
50
“I would not like to live with the security precautions I observed at various homes I visited …”
Me neither. I spent a night staying at our agent’s home before my red eye flight back to Oz and it was a thoroughly depressing experience. He had a lovely home, but just driving through the upmarket suburb put me on high alert, with razor wire atop tall walls, huge steel gates before every home and armed security guards driving around looking anxious. I had already been tutored in the art of defensive driving, in particular how to avoid carjacking, but the complicated palaver that had to be followed just to gain entry was an eye-opener – more head-swivelling, steel doors and CCTV everywhere. Then, once inside the house, I found the three wings of the house each separated by yet more steel doors, this time to provide safety during armed home invasion which, according to my host, homeowners were unlikely to survive if captured by the robbers. Needless to say, he owned several guns, one of which looked like Dirty Harry’s Magnum, only bigger. Even his lovely, petite wife had a handgun in her purse.
This was twenty years ago and I have since met many South Africans who have moved here to Oz.
90
Don’t ever forget;
* 2010-2011 introduction by Federal Labor of the thirty something per cent Renewable Energy Target with special incentive subsidies offered.
* The same government introducing a carbon tax and a renewable energy surcharge on our electricity bills.
* State Labor governments following with privatisation of publicly owned power stations and transmission lines (completed by Coalition governments).
* SA leading the other States into the transition to unreliable energy from wind and solar – with brown coal power station backup via VIC grid interconnector.
* NSW power station assets sold for $6 billion, estimated valuation $12-15 billion, after government owned private companies that replaced the State Electricity Commission debts were retired all that was left was $800 million from the sales. In other words debt hidden off State Budgets and paid to the Labor NSW State Government as dividends on electricity sales.
* The RET subsidy incentives are costing consumers several billion dollars each and every year.
* The loss of efficiency in generating by power stations managed to give wind and solar an advantage when operating also adds to electricity charges to consumers.
* Turnbull Government introduced with Labor and Green support a carbon tax levy against coal fired power station emissions in 2016.
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How could anyone downvote Dennis’s comment. I hope it was done by mistake.
20
That’s a very interesting summary.
10
The colour of coal certainly cannot be the issue here :).
20
Apparently coal IS racist.
What isn’t these days….?
https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2012/12/coal-is-racist/
20
Who knows what is politically correct or not these days, yesterday I read that archaeologists are being told not to identify skeletons as make or female because to do so would be disrespecting the previously living people.
40
Also, now “dead naming” is a major social offence thst will get you banned on Twitter and other socialist media as Jordan Peterson found out.
30
I think Peterson knew what he was doing. Since his health problem, he has changed significantly and I worry for him. He seems to be more provocative than before, which is fair enough, but he also seems a little more fragile and in need of some quiet time.
As for ‘dead naming’ I can’t help wondering why it is that Peterson using Ellen’s name is a sin, yet the movies she appeared in obviously carry credits for ‘Ellen’ and we’re supposed to ignore that.
I think the over-arching rule is that anything a conservative does is wrong, subject to revision at any time without notice or clarification.
20
If you look at Page’s Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Page?wprov=sfla1 it refers to “his” movie and TV roles even though it “identified” as a female at the time. Are they going to revise all the credits and write Ellen Page out of history?
Applying this to Jenner, who was it exactly, who was the Olympic athlete. Was it Bruce or Caitlyn?
10
Eskom have a data portal.
Some of it is up to date, some of it isn’t.
https://www.eskom.co.za/dataportal/
00
I wonder how it is explained how before 28 years ago SA had no energy starvation and was a significant exporter of electrical energy and now they are struggling to keep the lights on for just a few hours per day…?
One does begin to wonder after a while…
100
Its on the threshold of becoming a failed state.
60
Hmmmm, both of the comments above could be referring to a country we all know quite well.
30
I read it as South Australia.
50
After an episode of gardeners world in the UK that featured a couple of S African plant hunters there was an obituary. It turned out they had been murdered almost as soon as filming finished. Said by terrorists but just marauding criminals really.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_and_Rachel_Saunders
Sounds like a great country to avoid.
30
S Africa…. beutiful country….governed by idiots !
10
..^^^ does that sound familiar ?
10
South Africa is still a basket case. Despite the great works of Mandela, the country is still avidly racist.
10
Mandella’s change just shifted it from a white on black racism to a black on black racism … Tribal conflict, racism in its most basic form.
That , fuelled by the new access to money and power via corruption, has resulted in the mess we now see.
You could be forgiven for thinking ……… Mandella did his country no great favors !
40
Sorry, i ment to add,…
South Africa IS a basket case,
……. before it was a successful, growing nation with relatively minor issues compared to now. !
20
You probably never heard this down in the civilised part of the South – but S.A.’s energy minister had an idea about how to handle the failing Eskom giant. His answer? Build ANOTHER energy company that will ‘compete’ with Eskom, and keep it on its toes! This, of course, would be another State Owned Entity, and run the exactly same way. Of course, this produced a HUGE amount of jeers in the comments, mostly on the lines of “You can’t run ONE – yet you want a second?” The general level of technical and commercial idiocy in SA has to be seen to be believed!
10