Thanks To Daily Blackouts, South Africa Is Beating Its Emissions Goal

Written by Joel Pollack on May 25, 2023. Posted in Current News

South Africa is exceeding its goal of cutting CO2 emissions — thanks to regular blackouts that are now a daily feature of life in the country and have become a serious obstacle to economic growth

As Breitbart News reported recently:

“Load shedding,” the practice of controlled blackouts by the state-owned power company, Eskom, continues to plague South Africa.

Load shedding affects millions of residents and businesses. Large companies typically install diesel-powered generators; some wealthy families install batteries or solar panels to make up for electricity outages.

But for millions of people — especially the poor — the impact is tremendous.

And when power is restored, electricity surges can also damage consumer electronics, destroying additional household wealth and productivity.

Two decades ago, Eskom had excess capacity and generated the cheapest electricity in the world.

But the company was undermined over time by aggressive affirmative action policies that forced the departure of skilled engineers, and by “black economic empowerment” procurement policies that enriched a small group of corrupt, politically-connected entrepreneurs without delivering value to the company or to its consumers.

There is little hope for restoring Eskom’s capacity.

The utility relies heavily on coal, which is abundant but has whose supply has also been affected by corruption that has accelerated the deterioration of the country’s rail networks, which are necessary to transport coal from the mine to the plant.

Cape Town has launched an effort to develop its own power sources, focusing on abundant solar and wind energy, but completion is years away.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that South Africa has exceeded its goals for emissions cuts.

See more here climatechangedispatch

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