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Question of the Day: Have you ever been to an airshow?
Load Shedding does not work
- Thread starter Moederloos
- Start date
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Reading around, it appears there is a lot. 4 hours seems to be the point where health organisations recommend testing food to see if it has spoiled. (Fridge, not freezer - freezer is 18-24 hours).
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Which brings me back to another pet hate. The advertisement on the radio where they tell people to switch the geyser off when they go to work, and back on when they get home - which leads to a healthy spike at 5-7pm when people turn their geysers on....
Albereth
Honorary Master
If there were any intelligent people at Eishcom we wouldn't be in this mess.
GavinMannion
Executive Member
Just to jump in quickly...
I was lucky enough to be present in a meeting the other day on how Eskom are trying to fix the problem...
1. There are some highly intelligent people from the private and government sectors working on this.
2. Load shedding is here for two reasons, to spread peak demand and remind us that we need to cut down on our usage.
3. The only way that this problem is going to get fixed is by being more intelligent with our electricity usage and paying more for electricity.
The fact is we are paying way to little for the electricity that we use at the moment and even if we increased our prices by 200% we would still be one of the cheapest places in the world for power.
Everyone can look back and blame everyone else for the mess we are in but that won't change anything. There are plans happening every day to fix the problem and it will be fixed, however it takes time and money...
I was lucky enough to be present in a meeting the other day on how Eskom are trying to fix the problem...
1. There are some highly intelligent people from the private and government sectors working on this.
2. Load shedding is here for two reasons, to spread peak demand and remind us that we need to cut down on our usage.
3. The only way that this problem is going to get fixed is by being more intelligent with our electricity usage and paying more for electricity.
The fact is we are paying way to little for the electricity that we use at the moment and even if we increased our prices by 200% we would still be one of the cheapest places in the world for power.
Everyone can look back and blame everyone else for the mess we are in but that won't change anything. There are plans happening every day to fix the problem and it will be fixed, however it takes time and money...
Albereth
Honorary Master
/me thinks about making a comment about gullibility but bites lip rather.
We don't blame 'everyone else', we blame those responsible, being Eishkom and ANC.
There needs to be more transparency regarding the plans to sort out this mess. Show us the plans!
We need to know that the fat cats are not getting their bonuses.
We need to know that the neighboring countries were load shed before us.
We need to know that they are using the cheapest coal supplies without the corrupt dealings with BEE suppliers.
We need to know that competent engineers, regardless of their colour, are being hired to maintain the power plants.
Do you have confidence that these problems will be fixed, like the problems were fixed with Home Affairs where they hired a private consulting company to 'turn things around' - if you've been to Home Affairs recently (I have) you'll notice that it the same old cr@p.
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GavinMannion
Executive Member
/me thinks you haven't got a clue what you are talking about
The BEE suppliers are not the ones pushing the coal price up, go check the world prices.
There are agreements with certain countries and companies where as they cannot be load shed. Else the financial penalties would cripple Eskom.
I am pretty sure the employees of Eskom will still be paid bonusses but I know nothing about that part.
Strange that you didn't ask for any information about the actual plans, but rather asked for incriminating things to carry on whining about
/me thinks you haven't got a clue what you are talking about
The BEE suppliers are not the ones pushing the coal price up, go check the world prices.
There are agreements with certain countries and companies where as they cannot be load shed. Else the financial penalties would cripple Eskom.
I am pretty sure the employees of Eskom will still be paid bonusses but I know nothing about that part.
Strange that you didn't ask for any information about the actual plans, but rather asked for incriminating things to carry on whining about
And if these plans were so wonderful, I'd expect you would have posted a hint as to what they were!
The price of coal is not the issue, it's the lack of planning that resulted in stockpiles being leveled to the ground.
The power stations that ran short of coal are built on coal mines with reserves to see the power station past it's design life, but they severed the contracts with them in favour of underhanded BEE deals.
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=113302
http://www.news24.com/News24/MyNews24/Your_story/0,,2-2127-2128_2301954,00.html
And before you accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about, bear in mind I worked for Eishkom and have hands on knowledge of what I'm talking about.
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GavinMannion
Executive Member
Unfortunately I am not allowed to reveal exact details, needless to say a few things are COGEN, more power stations, future planning, better modelling and whether anyone likes it or not, large price increases.
I am not getting into a conversation about how we got to where we are, I was just trying to shed some light on the fact that there are people working very hard to get us out of where we are.
We are also not the first country that this happened to and thanks to greed we won't be the last
I am not getting into a conversation about how we got to where we are, I was just trying to shed some light on the fact that there are people working very hard to get us out of where we are.
We are also not the first country that this happened to and thanks to greed we won't be the last
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Strange that you didn't ask for any information about the actual plans, but rather asked for incriminating things to carry on whining about
He actually did
Albereth
Honorary Master
Oh well, seeing as I don't know of what I speak I'll stop biting my lip and say you are gullible. You have accepted the lies about how things are going to be sorted out and glossed over the fact that the idiots who just fed your that bull are the same idiots who caused the mess in the first place.
You have bought into the whole bull about the world price of coal. The stuff they shovel into the power stations can't be sold internationally - it is not of a good enough quality - that's why it was cheap for Eishkom to acquire it. You now have all the passengers on the gravy train wanting their slice.
You have also come out with the nonsense about a 200% increase still leaving us as one of the cheapest suppliers of electricity. So what? South Africa does not make money exporting electricty - it makes it from digging holes in the ground. So right now the economy is going to contract, we are becoming even less competitive both in our base costs and the fact that we won't be earning enough to pay for tariff protection.
So great. You sat in a room with the very idiots who caused the mess and you think they are bright? They aren't. They are smooth, slick, and con-artists of the top order. Give me a dour Afrikaner any day - he'd be more concerned with getting the job done than worrying about whether the comb in his sock matches his Armani safari suit.
You have bought into the whole bull about the world price of coal. The stuff they shovel into the power stations can't be sold internationally - it is not of a good enough quality - that's why it was cheap for Eishkom to acquire it. You now have all the passengers on the gravy train wanting their slice.
You have also come out with the nonsense about a 200% increase still leaving us as one of the cheapest suppliers of electricity. So what? South Africa does not make money exporting electricty - it makes it from digging holes in the ground. So right now the economy is going to contract, we are becoming even less competitive both in our base costs and the fact that we won't be earning enough to pay for tariff protection.
So great. You sat in a room with the very idiots who caused the mess and you think they are bright? They aren't. They are smooth, slick, and con-artists of the top order. Give me a dour Afrikaner any day - he'd be more concerned with getting the job done than worrying about whether the comb in his sock matches his Armani safari suit.
And without the transparency, which we're entitled to, we'll expect it to be just as successful as the so called turn-around in Home Affairs.
And we'll pay more for the useless fat cats to keep their jobs.
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Oi - who hijacked my thread!
GavinMannion
Executive Member
Actually no, these guys are the ones who have been brought in to helpfix the mess
So you think that our coal price isn't affected by the international price?
Simple facts here Albereth. It costs a certain amount of money to make electricity. We are selling ours for exactly that. We don't have enough money to maintain and create new power stations. To get the private guys involved the price needs to be increased to make it a worthwhile investment and to give everyone some breathing room.
Thanks for showing your ignorance, again...
The head of the group is Afrikaans if it makes you feel better and the rest are made up of virtually every race and culture under the sun.
I don't know why I bother with this forum....
Albereth
Honorary Master
Neither do I.
But did all the Eishcom fat cats and government sycophants get replaced?
Nope - is the answer. So the idiots are still there.
/me thinks you haven't got a clue what you are talking about
The BEE suppliers are not the ones pushing the coal price up, go check the world prices.
There are agreements with certain countries and companies where as they cannot be load shed. Else the financial penalties would cripple Eskom.
I am pretty sure the employees of Eskom will still be paid bonusses but I know nothing about that part.
Strange that you didn't ask for any information about the actual plans, but rather asked for incriminating things to carry on whining about
I understand that. But... surely there should be something similar in place for those of us who actually live here and pay higher prices for electricity? Isn't there an implied contract with us South Africans, that they supply us with electricity?
Why are the plans not being made public? Why is there no transparency in eskom & government dealings with regards to this?
Acceptable reason.
Unacceptable reason. What are they hoping for, some pavlovian effect? Ridiculous.
This well help, but it doesn't address some of the major problems. How much exactly is residential use of eskom's total capacity?
How do you see this helping? By reducing demand or increasing profits. I don't think we can have both.
Do you have anything to substantiate this claim with? I see it quite often but never any evidence for it. Also, is this taking into account different minimum wages etc...?
Show me a study showing electricity price per kwh as a percentage of minimum wage that shows SA's price as 1/3 of most places and I'll believe you.
Blame is laid on those who deserve it. The government and eskom are solely and totally responsible for this mess and still they don't accept responsibility and try shift blame. We are not having that, and nor should we. The only way we can stop a stuff-up of such catastrophic proportions from happening again is to hold those responsible for this accountable.
So you can ask people to stop blaming government and eskom when the people responsible are out of a job, without severance pay.
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Exactly. How on earth can anyone believe this will be fixed if the same people responsible for this mess are still in charge.
Albereth
Honorary Master
No wonder we have complete and utter confusion - "plans are happening every day".
We won't tell you what the plan is for tomorrow, and you know all about yesterday's plan when your power was cut in the middle of dinner.
We won't tell you what the plan is for tomorrow, and you know all about yesterday's plan when your power was cut in the middle of dinner.