South Africa energy crisis - Feb 8
by Staff
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Energy Lessons from South Africa
Nicholas von Hoffman, The Nation
What do you do when you flip the light switch and nothing happens? You call the electric company and complain. But what do you do if the electric company tells you, "We have run out of electricity"?
That is more or less what has happened in South Africa, which, despite the reputation of the continent it is part of, is anything but an undeveloped society. SA is a technologically advanced nation, which is one of the reasons it is in an energy fix of massive proportions. Its economy has grown much faster than its electricity- generating capacity.
The service interruptions that have resulted from this range from the laughable to the lamentable.
...Food rotting in refrigerators, stalled commuter trains, inert computers, lifeless traffic lights--the list of inconveniences and crippled necessities is endless. No TV! The time, five years and running, estimated to remedy the situation will seem almost an eternity to South Africans having to suffer through the shortage.
It takes years to gin up major increases in generator capacity. You cannot order them up in January and have them in place in November. This should serve as a warning to Americans, who are better at objecting to the building of electric utility plants than they are at coming up with the means to generate power that they approve of and will allow to be constructed.
Oil- and gas-fired plants are out of consideration, for price and pollution reasons. But so is nuclear power. And if you try to put up a wind farm, you will be fortunate if one, two or three special-interest groups do not go to court to stop you. One project has been opposed because people do not want to look at it. The case of Teddy Kennedy and the windmills off Martha's Vineyard is too well-known to need description.
With the coming of plug-in electric cars, electricity can and will replace much gasoline usage, but only if there is power in the receptacle the automobile is plugged into. That is not going to happen if we wait around for the invention of miraculous technologies while disdaining the ones at hand. The miracles are decades away; the demand for juice is not.
We can either get working on this or we can prepare ourselves for being cold, dark, immobilized, isolated, poorer, uncomfortable and very tired from the extra work we will have to do when our electrically powered machines can't perform. Let's get cracking.
(8 February 2008)
South Africa crisis spreads to fuel and gas supplies
Caryn Dolley, Anel Powell and Ingi Salgado, The Independent on Saturday (South Africa)
As of Wednesday Chevron Refinery will not be able to supply consumers with liquefied petroleum gas and the sales of ship fuel will be suspended as the refinery says it cannot run because of the "unavailability of stable power supply".
But Eskom says there is an electricity supply to Chevron, albeit a "risky" one.
The hospitality industry was also reeling from the news that gas shortages could add to their power shortage woes and the shipping industry was worried about gas not being available.
Last night, Chevron Refinery's public affairs manager, Phumi Nhlapo, said it had sufficient diesel and petrol stocks but could not resume production because it did not have a stable power supply.
She said the refinery began the "restarting process" on Saturday after Friday's unplanned shutdown caused by the city-wide blackout, but was "unable to move forward with the start-up due to the unavailability of stable power supply".
(6 February 2008)
South Africa: Recycling Can Help Alleviate Energy Crisis
BuaNews (Tshwane) via allAfrica.com
Cape Town
Recycling can play a major role in alleviating the country's energy crisis, says a senior Cape Town official, with eye-opening statistics to back up this claim.
Councillor Clive Justus, Chairperson of the City of Cape Town's Utility Services Portfolio Committee, says the unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could power a television set for up to 5 000 hours.
"An estimated 512 homes could be electrified by the amount of energy saved from a year of paper recycling. "It is within every resident's reach to recycle and thus help the city to achieve its goal of reducing electricity consumption by 10 percent," he said.
He provided a few easy tips which could contribute towards recycling and saving. "Firstly, buy products with minimal packaging material. On average, 16 percent of the price pays for the packaging material which ultimately ends up as rubbish. Apart from saving money, we can reduce waste.
(7 February 2008)
The South African Butterfly
Eric J. Fry, A Rude Awakening at Agora Financial
When a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the Pacific, according to
chaos theory, a tidal wave can result on the other side. And when an electric
utility on the southern tip of Africa decides to stop producing electricity,
the share price of a platinum miner in Montana can rocket higher. Precious
metals investors, therefore, might want to freshen up their understanding of
the “butterfly effect”…and also keep a close eye on the headlines coming
out of South Africa.
We’ve never really believed that a butterfly could cause a tidal wave, but
recent events in South Africa are eroding our skepticism. Ever since Eskom,
South Africa’s nationwide electric utility, reduced the “juice” it supplies
to the country’s mines, the price of platinum has been soaring. Granted,
ESKOM is no butterfly and platinum is no tidal wave, but a seemingly
insignificant event in a distant land has indeed produced a significant
consequence worldwide.
According to the “butterfly effect” of chaos theory, “small variations in the
initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large
variations in the long-term behavior of the system.” South Africa’s
electricity crisis certainly makes the point. After ESKOM reduced electricity
supplies to the mines by “only” 10%, the price of platinum soared $300 to
$1,840 an ounce. The $300 price jump is certainly a “large variation” in
behavior. The question before the investing world is whether rising platinum
prices will become a “long-term” variation.
“When South Africa electricity producer Eskom shut off the power,” our
resident natural resources expert, Byron King, explains, “all major South
African underground platinum mines closed. Since South Africa controls about
70% of new mine output for platinum group metals, the prices of all the
platinum group metals soared, as industrial users and speculators panicked
over security of supplies.”
(8 February 2008)
Investment newsletter. Byron King has written many articles for Energy Bulletin.
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