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South African Electricity Supply Infrastructure Crumbles...
The New Observer ^ | FEBRUARY 4, 2015 | TNO STAFF— IN AFRICA

Posted on 02/09/2015 5:40:41 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder

Only sixteen percent of blacks in the sprawling South African township of Soweto, Johannesburg, pay for their electricity, while South Africa’s electricity supply infrastructure is rapidly crumbling due to incompetent Third World management and lack of maintenance.

The situation is so dire that local media have now reported that the government has been briefed on emergency measures in the event of a total national electricity blackout.

The extent of the problem was graphically revealed when late last year, shock photographs—taken in secret by one of the employees of the state-run Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom)—were leaked of one of the country’s major power stations.

The pictures, taken at the coal-fired Lethabo power station, located in the northern Free State, showed that the interior of the plant had been consumed in mountains of ash. The ash deposits, located underneath the boilers in which the coal is burned, are supposed to be sucked out by hopper units and transported by conveyor belt to an ash stacker.

However, lack of maintenance caused the hoppers to become blocked. An Eskom spokesman admitted to media that the “power station had been run very hard and maintenance has previously been deferred,” and said that some of the “pipes may have to be replaced and it may take months to have the stacker and the rest of the system fully functional again.”

[pix at source]

(Excerpt) Read more at newobserveronline.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: africawinsagain; coal; electricity; maintenance; power; powergrid; southafrica
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1 posted on 02/09/2015 5:40:41 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

South Africa, Zimbabwe... anyone see a pattern here?


2 posted on 02/09/2015 5:42:42 AM PST by Obadiah (Wind turbines, aka: bird choppers, cause earthquakes due to their harmonic frequencies.)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

C’est l’Afrique

aka

AfricaWinsAgain


3 posted on 02/09/2015 5:43:59 AM PST by Little Pig
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder
Plant management is undoubtedly under some ANC crony, who treats it as a "no show" job.

I'm waiting for the "Atlas Shrugged" moment.

4 posted on 02/09/2015 5:44:03 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: PapaBear3625
I'm waiting for the "Atlas Shrugged" moment.

I was gonna say...

This sounds like one of the predictions made by John Galt to Dagny Taggart.

5 posted on 02/09/2015 5:45:58 AM PST by Steely Tom (Vote GOP for A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

The pictures, taken at the coal-fired Lethabo power station,


The left will think that is the problem..................


6 posted on 02/09/2015 5:48:56 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Obadiah
"South Africa, Zimbabwe ...anyone see a pattern here."

Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Philidelphia, Washington, ... America.

7 posted on 02/09/2015 5:55:49 AM PST by StormEye
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

I used to know a couple who worked at a South African nuclear power plant back in the 1980’s. They told me it was well run and the country was up to first world standards then. Also they said the world was blowing things out of proportion on South Africa in general. It is a shame that it is now a third world craphole.


8 posted on 02/09/2015 6:10:34 AM PST by Nowhere Man (Mom I miss you! (8-20-1938 to 11-18-2013) Cancer sucks)
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To: StormEye

The fundamental transformation of South Africa is something liberals can be proud of. It has recently been reported that life expectancy in South Africa has gone from 64 all the way up to 56. In Zimbabwe female life expectancy has gone from 61 all the way up to 34. The idea that utilities do not have to be paid for is common. This is one of Detroit’s problems. Eventually the whole system falls apart or more correctly is fundamentally transformed.


9 posted on 02/09/2015 6:22:15 AM PST by Vehmgericht
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To: Vehmgericht

Kenyan is working hard to follow shining example of Shot Africa.
All the commie, unhappy African Americans should go home and help the motherland to accelerate the transformation.


10 posted on 02/09/2015 6:27:27 AM PST by Leo Carpathian (FReeeeepeesssssed)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

Seems like they need a really big ash-hole for all that.


11 posted on 02/09/2015 6:48:39 AM PST by Wally_Kalbacken
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To: PapaBear3625; Steely Tom
Oh, they're even closer to failure than that.

Further down that article:

“The Soweto arrears date from 2003 and cover about 150,000 households directly supplied by Eskom, with 70,000 of these on prepaid systems. Of the 80,000 Soweto households without prepaid meters, only one in six pays for the electricity it uses.

The black refusal to pay for electricity is not limited to Soweto: the municipalities of Ngwathe, Dihlabeng, and Maluti-a-Phofung in the Free State, are collectively second-in-line in the non-payment ratings, and together owe more than R700-million to Eskom.

The few remaining white areas, of course, pay in full—and extra—to cover this shortfall, and then pay once again through taxation. The National Treasury has recently announced that it will be giving Eskom another R10-billion in June as part of a “financial aid package.” Whites in South Africa make up a disproportionately large number of individual and business taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the Johannesburg-based City Press newspaper has reported that the country’s “cabinet had been briefed by Eskom about the risk of a total national electricity blackout.”

According to that newspaper, Eskom had warned government it had no option but to continue “load shedding,” (deliberate and scheduled power cuts) because they could not “afford a total blackout.”

Eskom sources told City Press that a national blackout was a “very significant possibility for the foreseeable future” and that the situation is steadily getting worse.

Eskom should be able to generate 43,300MW of power on a 24-hour basis. However, on a good day, the power utility only produces 71 percent of its generation capacity owing to faults at its power stations—and the need for maintenance is critical.

“Lately, according to the utility’s own graphs, they have been operating at 65 percent on most days, the sources said, adding that Eskom was “standing at the edge of the precipice” and that “if two power stations experienced breakdowns without warning, we would be in deep trouble.”

12 posted on 02/09/2015 6:57:26 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: StormEye

Good point!


13 posted on 02/09/2015 7:07:32 AM PST by Obadiah (Wind turbines, aka: bird choppers, cause earthquakes due to their harmonic frequencies.)
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To: Kartographer

Something to watch ping.


14 posted on 02/09/2015 7:11:58 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Obadiah
South Africa, Zimbabwe... anyone see a pattern here?

I'm pretty sure it is because of fatherless homes, single moms, poverty, slavery, white privilege...

15 posted on 02/09/2015 7:12:52 AM PST by Altura Ct.
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

Africa is slowly going back to the way the White Man found it


16 posted on 02/09/2015 7:30:27 AM PST by molson209 (Blank)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

I believe it’s called devolution, the result of the European anti-colonialism found in the modern African states today.

Are the natives losing control of their future? Are there no more white devils left to blame or redistribution of assets left to fight over? Are the poor still poorer after the new progressive economic reforms? Better medicine care, fewer diseases? What happened to the newly emerging middle-class? No, it looks like Africa is devolving into it’s own self-imposed chaos. The cure for colonialism has been worse than the disease.

I’m not surprised there are electricity and other shortages today? But they need to check their pantry to see if there is enough food and an agricultural infrastructure in place to sustain them in tomorrows uncertain world? Starving people don’t need electricity as much as food. And the rest of the world may not be there to feed them. Too many grasshoppers and not enough ants perhaps?


17 posted on 02/09/2015 8:06:48 AM PST by Texicanus (Texas, it's like a whole 'nother country.)
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To: Obadiah

Wasn’t free electric power been determined to be a ‘right’ by the UN?


18 posted on 02/09/2015 8:27:14 AM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Texicanus

As racist as it may sound, natives in that country are used to wandering out into the jungle or the savannah and eating what they kill. There are *some* agricultural* subsocieties in Africa, let there be no doubt. But as far as I know they are in the minority and regardless, they are not used to arming themselves with AK-47s and slaughtering the neighboring village. But much like the American version, it is hard to develop a long term plan of self-improvement and general living versus going out and taking what you want or need; by force.


19 posted on 02/09/2015 9:12:55 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (At no time was the Obama administration aware of what the Obama administration was doing)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder
As racist as it may sound, natives in that country are used to wandering out into the jungle or the savannah and eating what they kill.

Thanks, glad to know at least some of the natives are armed and prepared to survive off the land. Shows initiative and responsibility, not to mention independence from others for their survival.

I have never eaten "bush meat". But OTH some of the things we eat here in Texas and parts of the South and Southwest may not seem right to them. If it can be BBQed or made into stew or chilli or pizza, we can eat it (most of the time). That's why our native "redneck" peasant food seems "uncivilized" to some of the elite urban crowd and PETA (People not Eating Tasty Animals) types. Either way we know how to survive and make to best of it in hard times.

But the elite liberals and their low information followers everywhere want "more" when there is not much more left to give. It is foolish for them to expect the world governments to feed them and supply their future needs forever. As the liberal urban societies across the world crumble daily before our eyes, some of us are "Going Galt" or planning to return to the Jungle in order to survive.

20 posted on 02/09/2015 12:12:21 PM PST by Texicanus (Texas, it's like a whole 'nother country.)
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