Korean Job Discussion Forums

[skeeterses]

http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_SouthAfrica.html
http://www.southafricanews.net/

To the ESL teachers from South Africa, have any of you been back to your homeland yet? I've never been to that continent but hearing about a Developed Country facing a fossil fuel crisis is quite something. And if they're the canary in the coal mine, other developed countries will be facing similar problems within the next few years. I can only wish that South Koreans would know better than to build more roads and buy more cars.

[Otherside]

skeet,
I believe the problem isn't a "fossil fuel crisis". South Africa has always been an importer of oil and the other major fuel, coal, is in abudant supply.

The problem is with power generation. Briefly: In the last 15 years little has been done to upgrade the national grid, yet the economy has been growing, thus a shortage of electricity. How something like this can happen overnight (i.e. a month ago there were few problems) is beyond me. The biggest issue is that power stations take time to build and an overnight fix is not really obtainable.

Idea's being thrown around now include, the largescale renting of generators, installing solar panels on traffic lights, encouraging domestic and business users to cut down on consumption, and my favourite, installing remote controls in all domestic geysers in Gauteng thus allowing them to be "switched" at peak periods.

PS. Something similar happened in Cape Town in 2006. One of the reactors at the power station needed to be repaired, leading to chronic electricity shortages in the Western Cape for about a month. At this point, it was felt that something needed to be done and it was doubtful whether there would be new power stations up by the time demand exceeded supply. Needless to say, the contracts for these power stations are still in the process of being tendered.

[GreenlightmeansGO]

I was in Cape Town in 2006 during the power outages. It was SH!T!!!! I was a caretaker figure in a university residence and that was a major bummer of a time. Electronic gates...

[Otherside]