PODCAST: Absolute ‘zero chance’ of ending load-shedding anytime soon
22 February 2023 - 07:00
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There is “almost zero chance” Eskom or another intervening authority, can end load-shedding in SA any time in the next two years, one of SA’s leading energy experts, UCT's Prof Anton Eberhard, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge.
He says President Cyril Ramaphosa has felt compelled to appoint a new minister for electricity in the presidency, says Eberhard, “because his energy minister has failed him and his public enterprises minister has failed him.
Eberhard says that as Eskom’s capacity to generate power fades there is a growing consensus about the case for natural gas as a fuel for generating power, not merely as a replacement for diesel in peaking plant.
This might cheer energy minister Gwede Mantashe but Eberhard dismisses his role in rescuing the economy. Mantashe’s own plan for sorting out load-shedding, he says is “reduced and simplistic” and he is astonished that while TotalEnergies has found significant gas deposits offshore near Mossel Bay, the French conglomerate’s efforts to make contact with Mantashe have yielded no response.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
PODCAST: Absolute ‘zero chance’ of ending load-shedding anytime soon
There is “almost zero chance” Eskom or another intervening authority, can end load-shedding in SA any time in the next two years, one of SA’s leading energy experts, UCT's Prof Anton Eberhard, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge.
He says President Cyril Ramaphosa has felt compelled to appoint a new minister for electricity in the presidency, says Eberhard, “because his energy minister has failed him and his public enterprises minister has failed him.
Eberhard says that as Eskom’s capacity to generate power fades there is a growing consensus about the case for natural gas as a fuel for generating power, not merely as a replacement for diesel in peaking plant.
This might cheer energy minister Gwede Mantashe but Eberhard dismisses his role in rescuing the economy. Mantashe’s own plan for sorting out load-shedding, he says is “reduced and simplistic” and he is astonished that while TotalEnergies has found significant gas deposits offshore near Mossel Bay, the French conglomerate’s efforts to make contact with Mantashe have yielded no response.
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