Eskom - pray for a dry highveld summer?

[topgun]

According to Eskom,the wet weather resulted in the utility losing generation capacity as it rendered coal stockpiles unusable and impacted on open pit coal mining. Eskom mouth, Fani Zulu, said that "in the past rain would not have had an effect on Eskom's ability to supply power as it had a sufficient cushion of surplus coal available to draw on during rainy weather". Another day, another flimsy excuse - first bird droppings shorted out transmission lines to the Cape, then fog, then an errant bolt (as called by Mr Sabotage Erwin), and now....rain....I ask you - any bets on what is next, er, capacity problems at HQ?

[CHATTYCHAT]

Excellent - very balanced critisism in plain English. I remenber someone expressing concern that the (winter) 2010 grand opening of the FIFA world cup stands prone to a power failure. Several stadium power supply backups should be installed to avoid game interruption during this series. I think the public outcry is a softy at the moment. People like certain forumites (there are several) with ability to express themselves well should join the public critics in pointing out the sloppy elements in these strategic services. Telkom,SAPS,SSA,Home Affairs,Land Affairs to name a few :-)

[#3]

Rain, yes it must be the rain... or maybe Alec is going to blame "panic buying/usage" by the consumer (like he did with the fuel crisis) what a load of shed!!!! the incumbent management and ministers are purely to blame for the incompetent lack of strategic capacity management of fundamental services. (And don't give me ***** about the previous regime either, you've had flippin 13 years in power (with one or two outages that is)) the way things stand, if i was Andorra or Lichtenstein i would plan my invasion during a rainstorm around the holidays, that way the majority of the defence forces would be unable to move due to lack of fuel, or be on strike. Not to mention the electric fences around our houses won't work because Eskom didn't invest in enough umbrellas to cover their coal (the might be able to afford it if they spent less on salaries of those spin doctors)

[john_1]

Solar powered electric fences now there is an Idea!

[#5]

There was a story a while ago that the contractors had not paid the truckers who were therefore refusing to transport the coal! Has this not raised its head again and is the real reason and not the rain?