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Working out well then

As traffic lights went dark, South African citizens struggled to drive through busy junctions on their daily commute.

The country has been plunged into “stage six” load-shedding – up to six hours a day without electricity – in recent weeks as Eskom attempted to stave off a total collapse of the grid.

While South Africa’s problems might have been tied to corruption and bad management at the state-run power company,

Of course if we nationalised everything and put Burgon and Wes in charge this would never happen, would it?

17 thoughts on “Working out well then”

  1. ”clapped out’ coal-fired power plants, neglected maintenance, years of delays in the completion of new coal-fired power plants and high indebtedness of the state-owned power utility’

    I suspect much the same’ll happen to Oz. Clapped out coal plants, neglected maintenance, expensive and unreliable windmills and solar panels, and huge debts to pay for all the Green nonsense.

    We have seen the future, and it is shit.

  2. When lights go out in some places the traffic moves faster as people take turns and the efficiency of the junction is increased as there is no gap between traffic flowing. I’ve seen it often. I’ve also seen the opposite though.

  3. Every junction I’ve ever seen with failed lights has run more smoothly for it. Until the police turn up to direct traffic: then it’s a lot worse than with the lights.

  4. In 1985 we thought we’d have flying cars by now, but instead:

    warnings that blackouts of the developing world are making their way to Britain.

    Can we organise a surprise lion party for Zac Goldsmith and his mates?

    Now, industry is pushing Government officials to finalise plans for reducing demand on the electricity grid to provide certainty ahead of winter. It would be the first managed decline of the country’s energy system for decades

    If there’s a single descended testicle left in the British body politic, this should should prove absolutely fatal to whoever’s in government this bleak midwinter. Tho the proles accepted their masks, restrictions and fake vaccines without much complaint, so we’ll see.

    Yet the reality of life under energy rationing may be difficult for families in an advanced economy to swallow

    The Net Zero plan was always, in its dark, shriveled, deep green little heart, about getting rid of that pesky “advanced economy” bit. Running hot water is white supremacy.

    Nelson adds that while load-shedding is commonly described as blackouts, plans currently being put in place in Britain are very different.
    “Blackouts we associate with sudden, accidental bad performance of the grid, but load-shedding is a planned, longer-term failure,” he says.
    “Load-shedding means the grid is fine but there just isn’t enough power for everyone.
    “It’s a slower, managed decline of the country.”

    Lions.

    Big, fucking lions with razor sharp teeth.

    Meanwhile, turning to supplies abroad could prove increasingly tricky. The value of natural gas imports have soared in recent months as European countries compete to secure vital supplies to fill up their storage sites. The buying frenzy comes amid fears Russian president Vladimir Putin will completely ban gas deliveries to Europe through key pipelines.

    When we decided to get into a proxy war with Russia, we probably shouldn’t have modelled our strategy on the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad. Putin must be laughing up his balalaika at how we’ve managed to massively increase Russia’s hydrocarbon profits, our sanctions are funding his war.


    “People will relearn lots of things about daily rhythms of life before they had central heat or cheap electricity,” Nelson adds.
    “It’s a hard way to live and, as a society, Britain hasn’t had to do this for a very long time. Tea will become one of the main sources of warm comfort because it doesn’t take that much energy to boil a bit of water for tea.
    “Of course it’s too late for this decade, but key decisions can be made now for a bright, warm 2030s

    I should probably stop commenting on this before I’m added to some kind of watchlist.

  5. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ When lights go out in some places the traffic moves faster as people take turns and the efficiency of the junction is increased as there is no gap between traffic flowing. I’ve seen it often. I’ve also seen the opposite though.”

    That happened a lot at the big roundabout between the M4 Heathrow junction and Stockley Park and at the M40 Handy Cross junction.

  6. About 20 years ago, I was driving in Brussels. I had just visited our company’s office there and I was heading back to my brother’s in Holland. I was on the inner ring road, although I knew the Outer Ring very well, I’d never driven on this before. Needless to say I missed my (badly signposted ) turn to Leuven, but knew that “all I had to do” was get off the next junction and get onto the Outer Ring for a bit. Easy. ( I took the road to Namur ).

    I sat in a queue of traffic, thinking that I was at lights or a roundabout something. Then as I approached, the full horror dawned on me. There was a Give Way line at the Ring Road. Somehow I had to magic myself across 3 lanes of motorway to the rather narrow central reservation and then manage to turn left onto the 3 lane motorway going the other way ( ie into the fast lane).

    Decently, the Belgies on the Ring of course knew about this and slowed down for nutters trying to cross. Luckily I had a swift car.

    It took a long time to clean the seats when I got to my bro’s.

  7. @CJ
    +1 Jamie does a good job

    As does Lord Frost

    Lord Frost goes cold on Net Zero

    TCW Defending Freedom reports on David Frost’s paper for think-tank Policy Exchange, in which he says current evidence does not show we are facing a climate emergency and the Government needs to stop “hectoring” people to make sacrifices to save the planet.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/lord-frost-goes-cold-on-net-zero/

    Lord Frost paper
    https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/holy-illusions/

  8. the dark blue free-but-unreliable-fuel bit.

    Not free. Don’t fall for that rhetoric. Unreliables impose costs on managing the grid, as well as massive upfront and maintenance costs (one turbine indoors vs 10s of huge turbines at height spread across a wide area exposed to the elements; which will cost more to build and maintain?) even if there is no fuel cost.

  9. as massive upfront and maintenance costs

    Yep, like gearboxs meant to last 20 years failing after five or less years, blades pitted and delaminting, alternator combusting ang igniting large fire that fire brigade can only watch…

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