Yea, not good reading that, even if one uses “filters”.
Oh my goodness… isn’t that the truth! Literally 6 months ago, political parties and anyone else who wants to beat the ANC over the head with a copy of the constitution were going on about how the election cannot be postponed any more than is absolutely required, and so the election was literally scheduled to fall within the gap between the 3rd and 4th Corona wave.
6 months later, a substantial number of South Africans think the timing of the 4th wave is extremely fishy, seeing as it waited for the election to finish first…
It worries me that I walk the streets with people that have this level of reasoning capability. Then again, perhaps some selection bias is in play: The dumbest mouths are the ones that speak up.
Nevertheless… on this topic. If you’ve read Jacques Pauw’s book “The president’s keepers”, you realise that organised crime is deeply involved. And one would expect them to protect their interests, so there does appear to be some level of truth to the claims of sabotage.
I’m in 2 minds about this. Yes, it’s bad that so much pollution is being pumped into the atmosphere. But the economic penalties of additional load shedding is also great.
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Well the NAQO did not say they cannot get exemptions or extentions. She just said under the law that she cannot grant them.
I think they will go talk to the ministers next and take it further.
There was another article a week or so back about one of those energy experts saying if they do close those old power stations now, they will have a bigger maintenance budget to spend on the rest of the fleet and then their availability factor will go up and not more LS.
If you look at the enviromental issues with these old powerstations, then that might be something to look at if it will work.
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Another issue in this case is that Eskom hasn’t made any moves to reduce pollution at all (AFAICT). They threw their hands in the air and shouted “LOADSHEDDING!” and the regulator isn’t falling for it.
They could have said they tried this and this and this other thing but they still need help.
They could also have said that at this station they brought it much lower than required, so can we please get a credit and apply it over here where we need help.
I’m sure there’s other compromises, but it seems like they tried nothing and now they’re all out of ideas.
Edit: Maybe this is just how it goes. I would actually prefer the ministers to get together and decide to overrule rather than an admin clerk somewhere deciding it alone.
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If we can get SA to pull together, THAT would make a lot of sense to me.
How do you eat an elephant?
My family used to say I worked for Teasers as they were to embarrassed to say that I worked for Eskom. Heheheh
This is not even a drop in the bucket my friends. The amount of graft and fraud at Medupi and Kusile, as I have been told by some persons directly involved on both the Eskom side and the contractors sides, right from Letuli house on down the ranks, are frightening. R50Mil per month just on invoices let alone outright bribery and pure theft.
Another story was on welding subcontractors deliberately screwing up the welds, not all welds were X rayed, just so as to extend contracts. Make a bad weld, wait for the potential discovery months later, cut it out, wait for new parts like pipe or flanges etc to be ordered and delivered, weld again, rinse and repeat. Now all welds need to be inspected on this section, add a few more months for the welder. A job that should take a few weeks to signoff, now takes many many more months.
Some humour…. This is hanging amongst the other things as we speak.
Groetnis
I see Medupi, one of the newest stations is on that list. So they basically designed and built a brand new power station without taking any of these regulations in to account, regulations which must have been in the pipeline 10 years ago already?
I think the stations are all running without filters intentionally so as to improve power output.
Money goes missing syndrome, its misspent, miss allocated etc etc…. This me thinks is just part of the scam from Escam, tell people we now going to have to shutdown working plant unless you pay, or change something.
The more emergency procurement, or any procurement for that matter, and the bigger the numbers, the more likely and easier the money walks with little scrutiny. Sorry but here we are.
Groetnis
I think most of us suspected a lot more going on, what the news says, I suspect even Ted Blom, is but a few scapegoats “offered” up to appease the anger at Eskom.
Not often that someone speaks out …
De Ruiter is probably also kept in “the dark” to a certain extent until it becomes too big to miss.
How to solve this without the Unions getting their knickers in a knot when you go through the Company with no tolerance for any BS … I have no idea, it is too big, too incestuous, too “connected”.
I think they must maar shutdown 1/3 of production … reshuffle staff and “set them free”, and use the savings to fix what is fixable with SA backing this like #DayZero in Cpt, by pulling together.
I can dream …
Just checking, but you are referring to what is normally called “scrubbers”?
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Same same
Seems Nersa is just generally terrible at price determination?
So seems eskom is pushing for the 20% increase and now claims it’s mainly because they have to pay more to the IPP and the increase in carbon taxes. The latter I can understand as it’s a historical problem.
From a business point of view, who negotiates a deal with external providers that cost more to supply power than what eskom would pay to generate themselves. That makes no business or financial sense. 
But this is South Africa, wonder who the extra cuts are going to.
There are my friend, no consequences at all……
Groetnis