South Africa Declares 'State of Disaster' on Power (aljazeera.com) 75
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a state of disaster with immediate effect to deal with the country's severe electricity crisis including prolonged daily power blackouts. From a report: "Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. The energy crisis is an existential threat to our economy and social fabric," said Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation address on Thursday night. The declaration of a state of disaster comes as rolling power cuts of up to eight hours per day are hitting homes, factories and businesses across the nation of 60 million. The state of disaster is an emergency measure previously implemented to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the deadly floods that killed more than 400 people last year.
According to Ramaphosa, the declaration will enable his government to exempt essential services like hospitals and water treatment plants from power blackouts and enable the government to buy additional power from neighbouring countries on an emergency basis. It will also enable the government to assist businesses to deal with the effects of widespread power cuts, including making diesel-powered generators and solar panels more widely available. The country's power utility Eskom is unable to produce adequate power due to frequent breakdowns at its ageing coal-fired power stations and years of corruption.
According to Ramaphosa, the declaration will enable his government to exempt essential services like hospitals and water treatment plants from power blackouts and enable the government to buy additional power from neighbouring countries on an emergency basis. It will also enable the government to assist businesses to deal with the effects of widespread power cuts, including making diesel-powered generators and solar panels more widely available. The country's power utility Eskom is unable to produce adequate power due to frequent breakdowns at its ageing coal-fired power stations and years of corruption.
Can't be lack of money (Score:1)
They have plenty of money to spend on swanning about with Ruzzian warships to show how all grown up and tough and rich they are.
Not sure why their new found friends aren't helping out.
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Re:Can't be lack of money (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember how Biden called out that Russian troop buildup at the borders of Ukraine was in preparation of an attack? And Russian officials including all high-ranking ones, Lavrov, Putin, kept denying, even ridiculing that? And remember what happened only 2 weeks later?
Russia invaded Ukraine.
The same thing happened when Russia claimed there weren't any troops in Crimea. Or that the convoy to the east didn't have any military supplies. Or that it didn't shoot down MH-17.
Russian official channels have nonstop output of lies and propaganda, and it's so staggeringly obvious, you have to wonder what kind of idiot you have to be to still swallow it and side with that regime, ruled by a dictator.
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Next month, on the one-year anniversary of the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, South Africa will be hosting Russian and Chinese forces for a joint naval exercise. The timing of the drills - which were apparently planned during Russian President Vladimir Putin's unprovoked assault on Ukraine - have the U.S. "concerned," and will at the very least present South Africa with a diplomatic challenge as the world marks a year of brutal warfare with no end in sight.
The South African National Defen
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"Mommy, mommy, he threatened to hit me back!"
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Thanks to the Civil War, democrats had to change their tactics. Now it's the racism of low expectations, and success means a loyal dependant class of voters.
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Your post doesnt even make sense but neither do most cases of conservative historic revisionism if you actually understand our country's history so I guess I shouldnt be surprised.
In reality thanks to the civil rights movement and the Southern Strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] white racist Southern voters fled the Democratic party in mass to join the pro business / pro economic elite Republicans who werent terribly happy with their Northern voters anyways. They were always yammering on about worker
Re: It's all so tiresome (Score:1)
The "Southern Strategy" is a myth, as is the mass switching of racist Democrats to the Republican Party. The Democrats held onto those racists. Republican dominance in the region came from Republicans moving into the fast growing and increasingly wealthy South.
MLK was a Republican.
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Your claims dont even hold up to the most casual thinking. The South's racist laws were passed by their democratically elected government officials who were elected again and again by their constituents. In other words they had the support of a majority of Southerners. It's literally impossible for the South to have gone Republican if these people didnt change parties.
Plus, if a majority of white Southerners didnt have an issue with race the federal government would never have had to force them to end segre
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Okay... but we've all seen the flags flying at recent Republican rallies.
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The Southern Democrats were right about blacks
That got modded up... on Slashdot?? What is this, SouthFront??
And no, the problem is never race, it's culture - or rather lack thereof.
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American racists at their finest. Zulus, one of the oldest and most established cultures on African continent... don't have a culture. And apparently don't have race, in spite of being among the most ethnically distinct and racially supremacist cultures on the planet. They will gather up to necklace you for being too black if you're Nigerian, and too white if you're Pakistani. Routinely. It's one of major problems with their failure to adapt to modernity, unlike for example aforementioned "too black" Nigeri
sounds like an job for nuclear power! (Score:1)
sounds like an job for nuclear power!
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They failed to renew [biznews.com] the contract... good luck!
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sounds like an job for nuclear power!
Yes, because South Africa is such a technically advanced nation. I'm sure there's an abundance of people there that can support nuclear infrastructure.
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I'm sure there's an abundance of people there that can support nuclear infrastructure.
There was... The racist policies, political meddling and outright criminality implemented by the ANC saw them supplanted by incompetent cadres
Shockingly, they left
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Yes that's right actually. They had a nuclear program and had their own nuclear weapons too. South Africa was a first world industrialized state at par with North America in pretty much every way at the time and in cities, indistinguishable from the United States.
I've been to South Africa, the running joke back in the early 2000's was "what is the difference between South Africa and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)..?
"..about 15 years".
Regrettably it seems the joksters were right after all.
When I was there, South Africa
Re: sounds like an job for nuclear power! (Score:2)
African Exceptionalism (Score:1)
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Not only in Africa. But Africa does it best.
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Give us time. We've flirted with it, but I'm sure if us American's really put our minds to it we can catch up with that level of innovative thinking.
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Well, Texas came really close to that lately...
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You want to put incompetent corrupt people running nuke plants?
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Well, yeah. I mean, it does work here, why shouldn't it there?
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That is the general problem with Nuclear Energy.
It isn't that it can be a green, solution to energy production. But it requires responsible management and oversight, as well management of nuclear waste that will need to last longer than any civilization has lasted to date.
Also typically when a bad government is overthrown the new government ends up being much worse for a while, as they tend to throw out the baby with the bathwater type of issues. So we then would have these plants who were managed by an i
Re: small nuke plants (Score:2)
Nuclear power is like communism that way - it does not work with humans in charge.
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If the spent fuel in dry storage is properly processed, the result is new fuel suitable for some reactor types and a remainder that needs to be securely stored for 250 years. Many civilizations have managed that long.
The crazy long storage times are based on the assumption that the spent rods receive no processing and are based on the faulty assumption that the waste must be stored until it is completely cold even though the natural rock it came from in the first place never was. If we applied that standard
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Actually you don't even have to process the rods, after 250 -300 years the rods are rejuvenated and can be re-used as fuel.
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250 years ago... There was no united state. While many of the countries have the same names and rough borders. They all had massive political upheaval during those times.
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Yes, we won the war 247 years ago.
If you want to go by the signing of the Constitution, 14 more years.
But that's a far cry from the fear mongers wringing their hands about if anyone will even be able to read the warning signs.
A glimpse of what is to come (Score:1, Interesting)
enable the government to buy additional power from neighbouring countries on an emergency basis
This works as long as neighbouring countries have excess energy to sell. Once they enter in crisis mode themselves, it all goes "poof".
unable to produce adequate power due to frequent breakdowns at its ageing coal-fired power stations and years of corruption.
You can make a parallel between what happened in South Africa, and what is currently happening in most countries:
- Strong subsidies toward wind/solar, which can't provide enough baseload capacity for an entire country, since 20 years. And don't start with the "just add batteries" bullshit, this is just offsetting the problem elsewhere (on minerals availability for instance)
-
Re:A glimpse of what is to come (Score:4, Informative)
This works as long as neighbouring countries have excess energy to sell. Once they enter in crisis mode themselves, it all goes "poof".
Which in many cases will never happen. For example, Nepal has been selling power to India from its' vast hydropower production for decades.
You can make a parallel between what happened in South Africa, and what is currently happening in most countries:
No you can not.
- Strong subsidies toward wind/solar, which can't provide enough baseload capacity for an entire country, since 20 years. And don't start with the "just add batteries" bullshit, this is just offsetting the problem elsewhere (on minerals availability for instance)
The only thing that smells like utter bullshit is the claim that there aren't enough minerals. Modern batteries are now cobalt free, and there is more than enough lithium in our oceans to store all the energy human civilization consumes in a year. Building batteries to cover the night or windless days is a problem of manufacturing, not mineral constraints.
- As a result, lack of investment in baseload power generators, so you end up relying on aging plants (gas, nuclear...)
This is a result of lack of investment in any power generators. Nuclear is a great option...
For instance, Germany either relies on gas-powered plants for baseload (but gas is going to run out), coal-powered plants (hence the fact that they just can't stop mining lignite in their own backyard), or by buying electricity from neighbors (like the nuclear-based one from France).
Maybe they did not expect to not be able to buy enough Russian gas, even with the war. Who knew the US would blow up their pipeline?
Different country, same example: during last week strikes in France, the equivalent of 3 reactor output was shutdown in France. As a result, less energy was available for sale to the UK, which was on the verge to restart coal plants...
Equivalent? What was actually shut down? Did the UK actually restart their coal plants? Thank goodness they are there for peaks, as needed.
The thing is that even in France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy, greenies are fighting and have been fighting the creation and research on new reactors.
No real greenie opposes nuclear power. Anyone who does is from oil and gas lobby, and using the environment as a false scapegoat. Real environmentalists ought to love Nuclear power (unless they are just dumb and cant comprehend the nature of energy generation).
What happens when France starts exporting less energy, and the neighboring countries can't provide their baseload needs? Guess we will end up buying our electricity from China, as they are the ones actually building nuclear reactors (at the rate of 1 going online every 6 month at the moment). The geopolitical considerations of that are going to be interesting in the oncoming years.
Europe is not a geographic position to buy electricity from China.
Re:A glimpse of what is to come (Score:5, Insightful)
No real greenie opposes nuclear power. Anyone who does is from oil and gas lobby, and using the environment as a false scapegoat. Real environmentalists ought to love Nuclear power (unless they are just dumb and cant comprehend the nature of energy generation).
Yeah, no. I know quite a few party line greenies who appose oil, any form of carbon creating power, all mining ( but like batteries , electricity, solar) hate dams, but love hydroelectric ( there's no logic here)and most definitively despise dirty, evil nuclear.
Re: A glimpse of what is to come (Score:2)
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What they actually oppose is Capitalism. They realize the best way of overthrowing Capitalism is through extreme energy shortages, which would bring industrialized society to its knees, their true intent.
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Unless you're using some new definition of "modern", which means seven years from now(when the blueprint for eliminating cobalt from batteries takes effe
Re: A glimpse of what is to come (Score:2)
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No real greenie opposes nuclear power. Anyone who does is from oil and gas lobby, and using the environment as a false scapegoat.
Please don't put a no true Scotsman fallacy in there. Greenies well and truly oppose nuclear power. You know damn well who he was referring to. Guys like /s.
Greenpeace: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa... [greenpeace.org]
Extinction Rebellion: https://twitter.com/Extinction... [twitter.com]
Friends of the Earth: https://foe.org/projects/nucle... [foe.org]
You know, really big fans of the oil and gas industry
Re: A glimpse of what is to come (Score:2)
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The thing about the neighboring countries of South Africa is that they are either
less developed,
not exactly friendly to SA or
both of them.
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Lying online needs to become punishable or you fucking shills will never shut up.
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One day California will be like South Africa. Stuff breaking down left and right. Corruption is rampant. Local citizenry are clueless to fix it.
Ahhh...must be nice living the life in Hollyweird where that future is NOW.
Real talent on display (Score:5, Insightful)
To screw up a country with as much potential as South Africa that badly takes real talent. A quick check of my usual reference [cia.gov] says that the bulk of South Africa's electricity comes from fossil fuels. With South Africa's enormous reserves of just about everything this shouldn't be an issue.
...laura
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The thing is, if you don't have the people to get that stuff out of the ground, you can sit on as much fossil fuel as you could want to and still wouldn't get anything done.
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Other part of the problem is global push for "green" intermittents over stable base power, which specifically included massive subsidies from developed world to developing nations in exchange of not building up new base power and instead building up wind and solar.
SA is just the first in line, as it's among the most developed, industrialized and corrupt. So leadership happily goes for easy money, pops up solar/wind which can't supply base power but looks good on paper on "nominal capacity", forego new base
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No one saw this coming... (Score:3, Insightful)
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So much wrong. So little time.
South Africa was another victim of the world playing proxy wars. The black population actively rejected education as offered because their leaders were playing out their communist freedom hero fantasies.
African cultures are not great at discouraging criminality. African cultures suck at personal responsibility, ownership, problem solving and planning for the future. They're significantly weighted toward subsistence and have no concept of future outcomes.
The ruling ANC are perp
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Spare me with poor black man trope.
Go read the book ‘The State Of Africa’.
It a repeated story of colonisers building government and infrastructure then the native Africans gaining independence then corruption and incompetence decaying those systems.
Generations genetic low IQ make it difficult for native Africans to run a complex modern society. And every time I hear , oh it whites oppressing the blacks, and a hundred years of catch-up. Sure that is part of the problem, but the primary cause of
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Re: No one saw this coming... (Score:2)
THEY NEED MORE ELECTRIC VEHICLES (Score:1)
Or maybe the EV zealots should wake the fuck up and start understanding that the only two continents that can even think about starting to support EVs are Europe and North America, and even then that is on VERY shaky ground. The rest of the world where 80% of humans live, simply does not have the infrastructure to support the energy needs of EVs. Even places like South Africa who are supposed to be at least somewhat of an advanced country. It is easier to build wind turbines along the oceans and use them to
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The EV zealots hate when their bubble gets popped.
Corruption at the highest levels (Score:5, Interesting)
Prior to the end of apartheid, the energy grid was largely built to service white people - the privileged few.
Whilst inroads have been made since to service a wider population, sadly corruption has resulted in that grid not expanding enough based on demand.
Much of the infrastructure of South Africa is crumbling due to under-investment.
My brother lives in Johannesburg.
He is one of the lucky few who have the means to curtail the worst of the issue.
Initially, he was relying on a diesel generator to cover the periods when the power was down, which were relatively short compared to now.
He's now installed an 8kw solar system, out of necessity to keep his home business running.
It is very sad, as South Africa has an abundance of sun and in the Cape, an abundance of both wind and wave power.
It also still has huge coal reserves and has two nuclear power stations still in operation.
This is a classic case of corruption and mismanagement to the highest level.
It didn't have to happen.
The water infrastructure is also crumbling with hardly any investment over the last few decades.
It is just a matter of time before that starts to fail too.
... a very creative country (Score:2)
On the plus side, for South Africa, the people are incredibly creative and resilient.
When the government continues to let them down, they make a plan - they deserve so much better than the scumbags who run the country.
It breaks my heart, as South Africa is such a beautiful place with so much potential.
Sadly, the history and the exploitation over hundreds of years has resulted in a toxic power grabbing situation.
I still believe South Africa can rise above the problems it has - and it will one day.
Well worth
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And how was it before the evil white people got there?
Don't feed the trolls they say.
This has nothing to do with how things were before the grid, but rather to do with actual fact. The grid was designed largely to support a minority as was most infrastructure in South Africa at that time. It was a country that existed in a very extreme 1st world / 3rd world situation - and still does, to some extent.
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Actually it does, because the new proprietors do not understand that what was designed as adequate for a minority of the population is not going to work well when available to everyone. Unless, of course, more is built.
The same goes for similar thinking in the US. For example, everyone gets free medical care. Doctors? Oh, we'll just keep the same number of them.
Thorium. (Score:1)
Corruption, Incompetence and Stupidity (Score:2)
This is entirely the fault of the ANC. Their ridiculous Marxist philosophy, coupled with a breathtaking degree of stupidity have caused the crisis. Putting 'cadres' into positions for which they have absolutely no qualifications or experience; rampant theft of already scarce resources; and an utterly spineless leader are to blame. If you are a South African, I urge you to vote next year to remove these clowns--and in the meantime buy solar panels and go off-grid.