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Once the highly infrastructure developed economic powerhouse of Africa, South Africans these days are more interested in the outlook for rolling blackouts. The country’s most-downloaded app provides schedules, alerts and forecasts for power outages.
Eskom, the state power monopoly, is struggling to generate enough electricity to meet needs, and has re-introduced a byzantine system of rotating outages known as “load-shedding.” On February 11th a whopping 4,000 megawatts of power, enough to power some 3m households, was cut from the national grid to prevent it from collapsing. Some businesses have bought generators and battery systems; others close during outages. In big cities, there is chaos at rush hour as traffic lights go dark. The blackouts suit copper-cable thieves, who can steal without fear of electrocution. And when the electricity is switched backed on, substations sometimes explode, resulting in secondary outages.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2019/02/21/why-the-lights-keep-going-out-in-south-africa
[paywall: you can see the whole article in 'anonymous view' through startpage.com]
More on the situation:
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/267263-south-africas-electricity-system-is-falling-apart-and-it-is-much-bigger-than-just-eskom.html
How to bring back the lights in South Africa?
(Score: 1) by Yaa101 on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:22PM (4 children)
Uhm... Investment?
No comment...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:54PM (2 children)
How could a capitalist economy ever deal with a shortage of a resource driving its price up, the ability to produce more of that resource with proven techniques requiring building new facilities, and a high unemployment driving labor costs down ? One really wonders ...
I know !
Ask the Communist Chinese to come in solve your problems, with money and workers, and totally-disinterested attitude.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:37AM
See also BRICS [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Wednesday April 24 2019, @03:51AM
The Chinese are ready with loans. And when the payments are missed, will own Eskom and South Africa.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-19/south-africa-forced-into-emergency-aid-payout-to-troubled-eskom [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @01:17AM
you can't do that without local and foreign corporations and banks cashing in you insensitive clot!