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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 khallow on Wednesday April 24 2019, @02:01AM (12 children)
They've improved considerably in the past 50 years. That includes South Africa of today with its rolling blackouts.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @02:32AM (1 child)
Especially since they started to genocide white people
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @03:18PM
They do seem to be the source of many of the non-white world's problems.
(Score: 4, Troll) by driverless on Wednesday April 24 2019, @08:56AM (9 children)
Oh God, where to start on this one. Eskom has no trouble generating power, what they can't do is get it to where it's needed, a problem created by a combination of running down the infrastructure created by a lack of funds due to embezzlement by local authorities (Eskom was once ranked the best-run power company in the world), combined with reverse apartheid that requires they fire all white workers and hire only black workers. Problem is that when you let go all your white engineers with 30, 40, 50 years of experience in running a power grid and replace them with fresh college graduates with degrees in developmental studies you get a power grid that collapses regularly. The only way to fix it is to fly in Siemens engineers from Germany to sort it out because you've fired all the local ones who could have done it, and with no money (see embezzlement above) you can't afford to do that. Result: Eskom goes from the world's top-rated power provider to basket case in under fifteen years.
That's the very, very short version. Longer version of just how fucked-up the whole system is would fill a book, and I'd have to post as AC via Tor once names and financial amounts start getting mentioned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:53AM (8 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:29PM (5 children)
Actually no..., infrastructure, the lights..infrastructure, etc. used to work in South Africa before. Now they don't.
This is also why "diversity" is nonsense. The smartest people, most qualified for the jobs, no matter what race, should get the job.
You don't see basketball teams full of Asians in the United States because everyone knows that generally blacks (and some whites, along with some Asians), are the best for the job. It is by merit.
Same goes for this.. The people who are capable of running the powerplants (and the government) are no longer in charge, because the majority of the population (which is now in charge), have too low IQs and don't know any better. During Apartheid, they didn't vote, so this wasn't a problem.
Now this doesn't mean that black people shouldn't vote, or that only white ones should.. because there are plenty of dumb white people too (just not as many as a percentage). Perhaps a very basic IQ test before allowing people to vote, so smart people of any race can vote and dumb ones of any race cannot?
Not sure what the answer is but basically post-apartheid countries have all become basket cases (like the rest of Africa) and people who are too dumb are now making the decisions. Democracies only work if there is an average society IQ that is high enough. Otherwise, you get this..
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Wednesday April 24 2019, @01:16PM (2 children)
It only ever worked if you ignored the non-white parts of the country.
Nice try....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @02:40PM
no..actually, that is exactly the point...it never does..
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:36PM
so it's whitey's fault they couldn't de-black the blacks completely? yeah, fuck off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @03:22PM
While not a perfect solution, this one will work for you:
1) Put on an overcoat with deep, reinforced pockets.
2) Fill all pockets with rocks.
3) Walk into the sea.
4) ... ?
5) We profit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:29PM
I notice pe1rxq seems to think that wasn't true in the non-white parts of the country. What's your take on that? It also ignores that GDP per capita has gone up significant since.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:40AM (1 child)
It has nothing to do with the parent, but since it's an actual real response to the article I posted it there to front-run the hundreds of off-topic gibberish US political shitfest / racist comments that the discussion turns into.
Incidentally, the above was from a former Escom accountant who got fired for repeatedly pointing out what the Guptas were upta with Escom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 26 2019, @06:08PM
I'll be a American racist before a European dhimmi any day.