Kusile designs "manipulated" so Hitachi Power Africa could win tender - De Ruyter

[Tomtomtom]

I would put good money on the engineers knowing the requirements but they were overridden by the beancounters and political masters for a bit of extra gravy.

I dunno... "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Where the knowledge does exist it's choked off by reporting hierarchies that have been utterly broken by non-meritorious promotion policy.

The few Mr Hams who do stick around have supervisors that are a standard deviation or two dumber than them.

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

This has been widely known for years. Since the late 2010's. Nothing new here.

The deal was fraught with corruption and the units themselves known to be unsuitable for our quality of coal.

 

[wingnut771]

Nice photograph of Kusile flue ducts. It puts their sheer size nicely into proportion, especially for those that have never had the opportunity of visiting a power station before.

Biggest powerstation in the southern hemisphere afaik.

 

[RonSwanson]

A retired Eskom designer offered his thoughts, in an open letter (13/05/2019).
The reading is fairly technical if you don't know power plant.
I think his closing comment sums it up.

Eskom design-veteran pinpoints Medupi, Kusile faults

CAPE TOWN — A veteran former Eskom power station designer has diagnosed the main problem and suggested a fix for Medupi and Kusile power stations, now several y

www.biznews.com

I am guessing that he wasn't a Twitter Engineer like Kawkaw.

 

[Harmonic]

Waiting for @TheChamp to say that has nothing to do with his hero, Gweezy.

Don't hold your breath. He was last seen climbing up gwedes rectum. Most likely lost in the large intestine now

 

[RonSwanson]

I read that at the time. Don't mean to sound like I'm defending Eskom but it does come across that our coal is pretty unusual and tricky.

There aren't going to be a large number of people who've read Mr Ham's “The characteristics of South African coals”, either.

But this just makes it even more unforgivable that there was apparently zero continuity of knowledge in the organisation.

They're learning all over again from mistakes that were made and learned from decades ago.

They had a wealth of information on it, but white man bad, he must go and make place for...

Lekker AA, BEE and Transformation!

And the taxpayer and electricity user must pay for it.

 

[porchrat]

Biggest powerstation in the southern hemisphere afaik.

Those units are currently the largest paper weights in the southern hemisphere.

 

[wingnut771]

Those units are currently the largest paper weights in the southern hemisphere.

Yip. African Excellence.

 

[Heisenborg]

They had a wealth of information on it, but white man bad, he must go and make place for...

Lekker AA, BEE and Transformation!

And the taxpayer and electricity user must pay for it.

Lekkaaaaaaa

Sigh

 

[SilverCode]

But this just makes it even more unforgivable that there was apparently zero continuity of knowledge in the organisation.

They're learning all over again from mistakes that were made and learned from decades ago.

From my understanding of reading this, Eskom had a specification in place for new plants to deal with South Africas type of coal. In other words a formal document that said "do this when building new plants". The new powers that be ignored this specification not because they didn't know about it, but because they wanted their looting partner to win the bid.

All of this would not have occurred had the boiler contractor utilised the boiler plant specification which we at Eskom helped evolve over many years, and applied successfully at the Lethabo, Kendal and Matimba power stations

 

[Mystic Twilight]

I dunno... "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Not this time, this time it was pure greed to get filthy rich,

you know, you have to be pragmatic – in order to pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit

Plenty of eating going around at the expense of the country, the comrades didn't struggle to be poor.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

A retired Eskom designer offered his thoughts, in an open letter (13/05/2019).
The reading is fairly technical if you don't know power plant.
I think his closing comment sums it up.

Eskom design-veteran pinpoints Medupi, Kusile faults

CAPE TOWN — A veteran former Eskom power station designer has diagnosed the main problem and suggested a fix for Medupi and Kusile power stations, now several y

www.biznews.com

And here is the operative paragraph:

All of this would not have occurred had the boiler contractor utilised the boiler plant specification which we at Eskom helped evolve over many years, and applied successfully at the Lethabo, Kendal and Matimba power stations. These stations achieved availabilities of over 80% for several years.

 

[Tomtomtom]

The new powers that be ignored this specification not because they didn't know about it, but because they wanted their looting partner to win the bid.

How do you know they knew about it?

Seems more likely they simply excluded from the process the people who had these specs in hand. Like the too-tall trains saga writ even larger.

I mean they didn't *have* to build a broken power station in order to loot. But the looting motive definitely correlates with general sidelining of the honest engineering skills.

 

[Tomtomtom]

Actually I'd double down on that and argue more sophisticated corruption is common everywhere but it's difficult to detect precisely because things do at least actually work, even if they were built with tons of rent seeking and kickbacks.

Our corruption stinks partly just because it's so damn low-brow.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

I read that at the time. Don't mean to sound like I'm defending Eskom but it does come across that our coal is pretty unusual and tricky.

There aren't going to be a large number of people who've read Mr Ham's “The characteristics of South African coals”, either.

But this just makes it even more unforgivable that there was apparently zero continuity of knowledge in the organisation.

They're learning all over again from mistakes that were made and learned from decades ago.

A strategic decision was taken by the SA government in the 60s to burn plentiful cheap low grade coal to generate cheap electricity and export the high grade coal for foreign exchange. Hence the building of the Richards Bay coal terminal in the 70s.

The power station boilers were thus designed to burn the low grade coal and burning high grade coal will damage them.

The ANC and Hitachi were unaware of this strategic decision due to the ANC getting rid of decades of institutional knowledge in one go to change the optics of Eskom to suit their ideology. Even replacing engineers with accountants because they were the right skin shade.

The same institutional knowledge disaster was repeated in the military, the police and every other government department including municipalities.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

I doubt that. The mob are so thick and arrogant they are incapable of learning.

Actually, you're right. Ideology counts more than knowledge with the ANC. I notice the chief designer at Eskom, Mr. Ham, left in 1994.

I bet he was also told "Your father told my father what to do but you're not going to tell me what to do!"

Said with belligerence, invective and hatred complete with spittle flying.

 

[Tomtomtom]

A strategic decision was taken by the SA government in the 60s to burn plentiful cheap low grade coal to generate cheap electricity and export the high grade coal for foreign exchange.

Interesting!

The same institutional knowledge disaster was repeated in the military, the police and every other government department including municipalities.

Exactly. The saddest thing is how this makes transformation its own worst enemy, proving the detractors right in the most humiliating way. Even the accidentally qualified hires have their self-esteem crushed by the low expectations. And there's nothing like humiliation to breed anger. ANC outbursts in the past few days being exhibit A.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

How do you know they knew about it?

Seems more likely they simply excluded from the process the people who had these specs in hand. Like the too-tall trains saga writ even larger.

I mean they didn't *have* to build a broken power station in order to loot. But the looting motive definitely correlates with general sidelining of the honest engineering skills.

Exactly the case. Those of us that experienced arrogant under par Dunning-Kruger ANC loyalists we were told to mentor and told they would be getting the credit and promotion know this only too well. You did the work, they got the credit and would override your decisions. Eventually it became untenable and those with the knowledge left.

 

[RonSwanson]

Actually, you're right. Ideology counts more than knowledge with the ANC. I notice the chief designer at Eskom, Mr. Ham, left in 1994.

I bet he was also told "Your father told my father what to do but you're not going to tell me what to do!"

Said with belligerence, invective and hatred complete with spittle flying.

Is maar swaar as jy dompoes is.

 

[Iamn0tageek]