Eskom ... is there ANY chance? In CPT there is

It does exist but needs to be implemented in the rural backwater I reside in :wink:

To my knowledge only big users (Megaflex) are billed on TOD…

They exist

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Clarens in the Eastern OFS is exempted from load shedding. Interesting story this.

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Saw it. That probably means they went to the trouble of being NRS048 compliant.

Did not see too much about this in the news media. While not earth shattering it is also not that easy to put a negative spin on it. At least it reduces the risk of both Koeberg units being off with delayed time frames for outages for upgrades/tests/refuelling etc.

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Interesting read:
Allan Gray | Eskom: Are brighter days ahead??

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We’ve heard other Munics doing similar …

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Ripple switches basically. Meanwhile Clarens is currently exempt for 4 stages of load shedding, but they’re a dorpie, not a big metro as CT is.

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Interesting to note that despite Kusile Units 1, 2 and 3 being returned to service in Dec 2023, the EAF figures for the first 3 weeks of 2024 are essentially the same as the VERY low EAF figures for the first three weeks of 2023 when Kusile Units 1, 2 and 3 were not available.

Groetnis

There is a difference between 2023/2024 though.

The EAF is similar while having more units out for planned maintenance. Looks to be about 2.4 GW’s worth (a number eerily close to Kusile 1-3’s output - so maybe the Kusile units are producing nothing and the rest of the fleet picked up the slack, or the Kusile units are allowing for more units from other plants to be taken off?).

Also, both unplanned and other loss factors are lower (does not exactly look like bright light in the tunnel but possibly similar to the repeated attempts to start a Bic lighter).

EAF_2023_2024

Only Esdom know, but I would venture to say that maybe the state of the plant is deteriorating faster than expected. They need more planned downtime to attempt to fix many marginal or rather dire but known issues that should have been fixed looong ago but load shedding prevented that.

We also do not have information on two other things being:
Have they used said planned downtime?
Have they fixed the issue in the planned time allocated?
Does the fix work?

LeefinHoopGroetnis

Man, this is EPIC!!! :laughing:

OK, I found it! @Village_Idiot will be proud of me!

Here is the video, the bit you’re looking for is at 1:05:50 (link has it spooled up), but you may be better off starting at the 1 hour mark. This is at the end, the last question, and up to that point he was talking about how countries use their economic powers to muzzle others, he brought up AGOA, which he used as an example of how the US can threaten to take things from you, and Cuba, which he considers an example of how a country is boycotted for the same reasons, then he mentioned how Israel took down the SA flag in the middle of Tel Aviv, “because we will show you!”, and he sort of ventured into Russia/Ukraine as well, before he said “who says those things? It is De Ruyter, a CEO with ideology and politics, a man who has brought us load shedding”.

So the larger context here isn’t load shedding itself. It’s that the ANC doesn’t like the criticism they are getting from everywhere, mostly about Palestine. He didn’t like that De Ruyter said “we are still in soviet union, and there is a ghost in this room”, of course alluding to the fact that De Ruyter very much did say " the ghosts of Marx and Lenin still haunt the halls of Luthuli House" (and frankly he wasn’t wrong).

In that context, Mbalula is criticising De Ruyter by pointing out that he speaks “politics from the united states”, when really he should shut up after doing such a bad job here.

In this part of the interview Mbalula is speaking from the fist, so to speak. This is not a prepared statement. So the little language faux pas comes out.

Edit: Anyway, if you keep watching, he eventually gets back to his starting point, which is that he says these external powers (the US, De Ruyter, these neo-liberals) are really after regime change, they just won’t come out and say it. Which… my goodness… is actually a much bigger bomb shell, for it shows the conspiratorial thinking of Ramaphosa here. Mbalula says that the president said these things (1:07:28).

And then he concludes by calling those who oppose them Fascists. Nice one Mbalula… nice one. That, to me, is the real sound blurb. But probably not the one that will sell papers/ads.

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Man, this video is a gold mine. 1:09:44. The ANC (or at least Mbalula) actually denounces Jacob Zuma, accusing him of stealing the trade mark of the ANC, he has stolen membership of the ANC, and he projects himself as a revolutionary, a pseudo revolutionary… he calls him a classical example of counter-revolutionism.

Blame and deflect, blame and deflect. The blind cannot see. Politics or Socialism/Communism is not logic, it is the opposite of logic. My opinion, see.

LogieseGroetnis
PS: Nothing is as illogical as logic is to them caders…

Honestly, I don’t really disagree with his logic. I disagree with the unstated premise that there is something wrong with this method of “regime change”.

Quite simply, as a consumer I will probably be dissuaded from buying products that are ethically encumbered, for example I might buy more free range beef if I object to the practice of keeping an animal cooped up in a cage and fed only until fat enough to go to the slaughter. You may not agree with my decision, you may call me woke or a liberal or a bleeding heart tree hugger or whatever, but the point is that we all vote with our money, to some extent.

Or to use another data point, I heard this story of a girl who identifies as a horse and insists that the school she goes to treats her as one. And again, I am all for your own personal freedom, but when we interface with other people (and other nations), there is an implicit contract there that isn’t a one way street. You can make certain claims, but I don’t have to accept them, and vice versa.

Similarly, if the US says “we can’t be seen supporting you on topic X, because that is important to us and you’re going the other way”, then they are very much trying to force a “regime change”. That doesn’t mean they want to kick you out of office. It means they want you to change your office. That is how it works, trade agreements (as with all human relations) are essentially contracts and they require things from both sides.

He is darn right that the world is trying to push us in certain directions. What he is wrong about, in my opinion anyway, is that there is something wrong with that.

Of course there may be something wrong with it, but you have to argue for it. I’d like to point out that this idea of absolute sovereignty is itself a philosophical idea that isn’t necessarily fully agreed upon, it is also part of a give-and-take “contract”.

It is actually funny that he appeals to international law to justify their support for Palestine, but then turns around and criticises other external international pressures. To be clear, I am not taking a position on the matter, here, I am pointing out that he is being inconsistent. When international law pushes us in a direction we like, then that is a good thing. When other international pressures tries to push us in a different direction, no… that is a direct attack on us, an attempt to have a regime change… that is fascism!

You can’t have it both ways Fiki-boy.

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Wow. great analysis @plonkster.

Now lets see what @Village_Idiot adds to the pot … :+1:

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I could say, “well done! You used the force!”… 98% of the forum will however be concerned “oh no, plonkster is leaning to the dark side!” :ninja: :slightly_smiling_face:

My intention was to not post on the dailyfiend content (no, not a typo, so no ninja edit required :wink:)

only options are frogs or spoons :zipper_mouth_face:

/wall of text - not doing a tldr.

I think @plonkster covered most of it. I would add for completeness

  • Mbalula is not exactly a great orator and often engages mouth before brain.
  • Mbalula’s words were in response to a journalist’s question about whether the NEC discussed the topic about possible regime change as a response to the (Israel/Palestine)-ICJ case (Ramaphosa mentioned regime change and the ICJ case the day before).
  • Mbalula prefaced his answer that the regime change thing is considered possible political analysis not something that represents a final “we believe it is a fact that everyone is coming for us” (my words).
  • He then gives examples of where this (regime change brought about by “dissenting views” that differ from the main stream Western/USA perspective) have been seen to happen in other places, according to their (ANC) perspective.
  • De Ruyter comes into Mbalula’s answer most likely because of a dailymisquoteforclicks article where De Ruyter is quoted from a youtube interview and the article slyly reads as though De Ruyter singles out the ICJ case as an example of “South Africa” choosing to side with friends rather than choosing to side with what will serve the country best.

“South Africa has many friends. However, we do not always strive to serve the country’s interests,” he said.

A good example is South Africa’s recent decision to take Israel to the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

  • The way in which De Ruyter left (that interview, which focussed a lot on what is wrong with ANC ideology in general not only how it impacted Eskom, making vagueish accusations about unnamed ANC figures) and now apparently also telling the ANC, from the USA that it is a mistake to side with Palestine - will make the leap easy to “he is part of an attempt to silence us by having us replaced”. Here I differ from @plonkster that “the change” is not to just “change your opinion” it is now in the realm of quite literally doing things that will get rid of you (so the ANC perspective is possibly that “they actually want to kick us out of office”. Also, it is a legitimate question of what will happen with the ICJ case if the ANC is no longer the main party in government?
  • Considering where we are and our past, paranoia in politics should not seem strange (many still in the higher ranks lived through actual threat from the then government and own side (interesting short synopsis of use of poison in our history and possible contribution to a state of distrust). Yes, paranoia might also just be an excuse to do stupid things.

With the frogs added I will now stir (see the spoon alluded to earlier…) :wink:

/engage tin foil hat mode

The more recent interview with De Ruyter he quotes Henry Kissinger to have said: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interest”.
My faulty perception of De Ruyter has been as having a stance of “renewables or bust” - he has actually been quite sweet on natural gas and still sees it as part of the answer to Africa’s energy development. Eskom was (?) looking at converting the OCGT to gas. Keeping in mind Mr Kissinger’s words about USA interest, and going back to that interview - it is noteworthy that AdR very publicly was very willing to air, what he said was pure speculation, that offers by the CEF to take over Eskom coal stations and convert them to gas was suspicious because it followed shortly after visit by the Russian Minister of Energy. If De Ruyter is sweet on gas, and uncle Gwede likes the stuff too - maybe they just disagreed on source. Maybe that interview was one of the bigger dominoes put in place to ensure the desired interest for the side speaking from the USA.

Also, why did the dailyfiend choose to exclude the regime change story as it is arguably the more useful part to paint “the entire ANC is coocoo” vs just getting “Mbalula is a lying clown” ?

/tin foil hat mode, disengaged.

We all saw him change … slowly, one reply at a time. :rofl:

Thank you both for the insights.