To fix Eskom, we first need to know how it got broken
The technical and economic factors that explain we ended up in such an electrically charged mess, are a good place to start
25 April 2019 - 13:55
Common sense suggests that before we rush in to fix Eskom we should work out why things went wrong. For this we need a logically coherent theory to explain how we got here. The basic technical and economic facts are a good place to start. Thermal power generation at large scale is an efficient, mature technology with very significant returns to scale. This means the unit costs of electricity from large power stations are considerably cheaper than from small ones. Major inputs are coal, fuel oil, and water.
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