South Africa Declares Electricity Emergency, Will Impose Power Rationing - AP

[hatrack]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa will ration electricity, increase prices and encourage a switch to solar energy, all part of emergency measures now being undertaken amid power outages that have caused chaos and misery nationwide and threatened to choke economic growth.

Neighbors like Botswana and Namibia, which rely heavily on South African energy exports, have also been badly hit by the disruptions in the region's economic and political powerhouse. The outages have undermined confidence in South Africa, with more incidents like the stranding of hundreds of people on tourism icon Table Mountain spreading through the media to other countries.

South African businesses have been crippled by the outages, which usually occur without warning. In an indication of the severity of the crisis, major mining companies including AngloGold, Harmony and Gold Fields Ltd. suspended work at some of their mines Friday for fear power cuts would trap workers underground. Gold Fields said it stopped all its South African operations, including in the world's biggest gold mine, which produce 7,000 ounces per day. The trade union Solidarity said nearly 30,000 miners on the morning shift were effected. The company said that energy provider Eskom had warned that the disruption could last up to four weeks. Gold prices reached record highs this month.

"The unprecedented unplanned power outages must now be treated as a national electricity emergency situation that has to be addressed with urgent, vigorous and coordinated actions," Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin told journalists.

EDIT

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTHN_vauNckr0PiXhNLvow2sEooQD8UCT48G2

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Gold is already going up on this news...

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures rose as South African producers including Gold Fields halted operations because of electricity issues. Gold futures rose $16 to $921.80 an ounce.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3156033&mesg_id=3156137

[bananas]

2. So their nuclear energy isn't doing shit for them?

[jpak]

3. We could sell them charlatan NJ molten salt breeder reactors, make "fabulous riches"

and "save Africa" from the horrors of solar energy...

:evilgrin:

[Nihil]

4. It's making it less severe than it would otherwise have been ...

... while they try to get their "migration to the future" into the real world.

> The government was also considering emergency measures to compel South
> African mines to supply the state utility Eskom with more and better
> coal rather than exporting it.
> "If they don't give us the coal, they don't get the electricity,"

That will be the exports to newly non-nuclear Germany that has made a
big hit in the South African energy budget. The good news for SA is that
the shortage has reduced the amount of CO2 generated by South Africa in
no uncertain way. The bad news for the world is that the same amount of
CO2 will be generated, just in a different place.

Still, the good news (for everyone) is ...
> Traffic lights would be switched to solar power. Cape Town has pioneered
> a successful experiment, helping to minimize traffic snarlups now being
> caused by signal failure.

... and the hope for the future is ...
> Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said South Africa,
> which has until now relied heavily on its cheap and abundant coal
> for electricity, would put more effort into developing renewable energy.
...
> Sonjica also said the government hoped that a million solar water heaters
> would be installed in the next three years and that measures were being
> considered to oblige hotels, hospitals and other institutions to use solar
> power for water heating.

... so it's not all doom & gloom (or rather, it wont be after the "next
three years" as long as the governments "hope" comes true).

Bit of a mixed bag really isn't it?
:hi:

[kestrel91316]

5. A photographer client of mine moved back home to South Africa

a couple of years ago. Hope he doesn't regret the decision......
.
.
.
.
.
.
Shameless plug for his book, lol:
http://www.amazon.com/Transitions-Southern-Africa-Gordon-Clark/dp/0974526207

[tom_paine]

6. Look closely, this is our future. Though we will kill millions more to delay it just a little while

n/t