Private group communication
Electric vehicles and grid instability in South Africa Geert de Vries March 9, 2022 This professor only talks about taxis, I wrote about electrifying the car fleet in all of South Africa. We are on load shedding stage 4 as I write right now because we are once again a few thousand MegaWatts short of generating capacity. Just imagine needing an extra 6-8000 MW for charging the nation’s EV fleet. (which only provides commuting, not long distance transport). The pitiful thing is that it is all aimed at reducing emissions because ‘emissions cause global warming’ and we can’t have that. They don’t. And we can. And why are we a few thousand MW short? Because the Government in 1997 wanted to privatise but there were no takers to undertake electricity generation in the then “lowest price per kWh in the world” economy. Because the Government in 1997 forbade Eskom to start its own new powerstation for 2007, hence the first load shed in 2008. Because Eskom did not protest enough against that stupid decision. Because the Government produced a simpleton, unrealistic, forgettable White Paper, but it stifled progress. Because Eskom’s real engineers left in droves due to the policy to transform to non-expert management and staff.
1
Because Eskom kept up its ‘lowest in the world price’ from 1989 to around 2008 and ran out of money and had to even withdraw its plan to buy new nuclear that would have prevented our present problems. Because Eskom Management neglected plant maintenance, (think 2010 World Cup). Because ANC discovered that Eskom was a made-to-order milk cow and proceeded to strip it bare in the framework of a majestic multi-year operation called state capture. Because there is a stupid green faction in the country that believes all the global warming nonsense and obstructs progress at every turn. And so on. It was (still is?) a race between utter stupidity and criminal intent to destroy Eskom and the country. I think I am in a bad mood this morning. Why don’t we have a South Africa web page for realists/experts? Muttering under our breath in this group does not do it.
2