Eskom power station blunder

Daniel Puchert

Daniel Puchert

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“Considering the capital cost overruns at Kusile, the increased capitalised interest during delayed construction, and the cost to SA businesses due to increased load-shedding following delays, I think this would make Kusile the most expensive coal-fired power station built in mankind’s history,”
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Okay but to include that is just stupid.

btw what does Yelland actually do besides feed clickbait to MyBB?
 
Tomtomtom said:
Okay but to include that is just stupid.

btw what does Yelland actually do besides feed clickbait to MyBB?
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Energy analyst, runs his own analytics firm. But it's mostly renewable focused, he does have the necessary qualifications though. But he's been swayed by the powers of the gods
 
Tomtomtom said:
Okay but to include that is just stupid.

btw what does Yelland actually do besides feed clickbait to MyBB?
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I don't necessarily have an issue with including those as part of the cost.

Unplanned Costs (Cost of Delays) is not something typically included in the project cost, but it can and does get included in final project expenditure because the delays in the project and the impacts thereof were pretty much known. This specifically has societal economic impact and would/should have been part of business losses calculations in its feasibility study.

Either way, include it or not, it's a bloody atrocity.
That money could have been so much better spent.

At this stage, even if renewables are still more expensive in general compared to other base load options when taking all things into consideration we've probably passed that concern a long time ago.... pretty much anything would have been better if you took corruption out of the equation.
 
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The Trutherizer said:
When the total cost (even ignoring economic costs - which we shouldn't ignore at all) is so embarrassing that even the person criticizing it doesn't want to say it out loud.
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There could be a useful piece of economic analysis here but he undermined it in favour of clickbait.

I wouldn't be surprised if Kusile is one of the world's most expensive power stations -- but I'm no wiser for this guy's contribution.

RaptorSA said:
I don't necessarily have an issue with including those as part of the cost.

Unplanned Costs (Cost of Delays) is not something typically included in the project cost, but it can and does get included in final project expenditure because the delays in the project and the impacts thereof were pretty much known. This specifically has societal economic impact and would/should have been part of business losses calculations in its feasibility study.
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If you're going to include second or third-order costs like loadshedding, you should probably also include indirect benefits like deferred burning of coal and consequently lower pollution and pollution-related health effects vs the counterfactual. Maybe even include the unintended boost that the new-build fails gave to renewables.

Either way we shouldn't need to do this given it's a dog show on its own.
 
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Tomtomtom said:
Either way we shouldn't need to do this given it's a dog show on its own.
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Oh absolutely. Which is why I relegated it to parenthesis for the casual discussion of the main issue myself. At least as it pertains to the article.

But yeah... Anybody serious would at least try to let it sink in. At the very least to develop a sense for the dangers of, and the recognition of, past present and future, the general attitudes and MO that got us to this point.

Myself I hold the preventable economic fallout as the more serious issue. But that's another discussion.
 
The Trutherizer said:
But yeah... Anybody serious would at least try to let it sink in. At the very least to develop a sense for the dangers of, and the recognition of, past present and future, the general attitudes and MO that got us to this point.
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For me it ties into the global trend of big public-sector capital projects becoming increasingly unworkable. By some measures Kusile's not even that bad. Just look at California's high-speed rail. Interestingly, also a 2008 baby. Not finished, budgets blown to bits.

And yet there they arguably have access to the highest concentration of human capital ever seen on earth.

Then again it's probably not a coincidence the Californian private sector is meanwhile running the space programme. There is no talent left in government, and so big public-sector projects are a thing of the past. We'll be relying on the private sector for the foreseeable future, at least until the next cataclysmic social reorganisation. Not a bad thing -- but not perfect either.
 
Tomtomtom said:
There could be a useful piece of economic analysis here but he undermined it in favour of clickbait.

I wouldn't be surprised if Kusile is one of the world's most expensive power stations -- but I'm no wiser for this guy's contribution.



If you're going to include second or third-order costs like loadshedding, you should probably also include indirect benefits like deferred burning of coal and consequently lower pollution and pollution-related health effects vs the counterfactual. Maybe even include the unintended boost that the new-build fails gave to renewables.

Either way we shouldn't need to do this given it's a dog show on its own.
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OK Captain Cope but how is all that deviation logic working out for you?
I can show you how it's working out for me...


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We don't need an expert to come to that conclusion.
 
The only people doing well in this country are the criminals. Given the sentences that get handed out, crime pays and it pays handsomely.
 
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