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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the there's-an-app-for-that! dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:18AM (#834127)

    Or after Obama, the race cards don't get as much mileage as they used to. Maybe the people who like to throw it are just bitching more out of disappointment? Is it OK now not to like you because your a dick, without it being about race?

    Can't be true! /sarc When the Washington Compost runs three pages of "everybody white below the mason dixon is a racist retard" articles on a weekly basis, really they are just enlightening us all to their open mindedness. Which is something I'll have to ponder if ever I am faced with the opportunity to stop a fascist from kicking the shit out of one of their reporters.

    Was racism. Now mostly whinism. Stop pretending to be a freedom rider, it isn't the fucking 60's anymore.

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