Dear Pravin Gordhan and David Mabuza, let's fix South Africa

I believe that groups of people should create Power Stations.

Actually "My Power Station"'s. So we'll have the Old Mutual Power Station. The Naspers News24 Power Station. The Pick 'n Pay Power Station. The V&A Waterfront Power Station. Plus the Church Power Station. The Shul Power Station. The Mosque Power Station.

If you look at Old Mutual's on site power station, you will see that a lot of work has been done, but this is a tiny amount of what Old Mutual could actually be doing. If only I knew a director there who I could talk to about my vision.

I believe that the first thing that must happen in South Africa is that the Playing Fields must be levelled. So everyone should get the perks that the Energy Intensive User Group (EIUG) get, and that Big Business gets. eg Time of Use Tariffs; Net Metering; Demand Response; Buying equipment before tax and before VAT; sitting with Eskom doing demand planning on a daily basis; Energy Efficiency perks; Rebates; etc. And all Without a service fee.

If we do only these two things, and we follow the ideas as set out in the Energy White Paper of 1998 and the Renewable Energy White Paper of 2003, and their National Planning Commission document, that I commented on, then we will solve our electricity problems very quickly. And once we start solving our electricity problems, we will solve our water, food, transport, jobs, health, and other problems.

Note that a Government White Paper is a Government Strategy Document. If only our government had followed its own strategy.

It's in our hands. It's not the government's fault. It's not "another" or "the other's fault". It's my fault. It's your fault. Because we sit and complain and we don't do something about it.

I have a saying: "The rich are rich because they socialise. The poor socialists are poor because they (we) don't socialise." Microsoft, Facebook, and other companies are still there because the founders stayed together. If they fought, they worked out their problems.

Let's work together in our power station groups to solve our problems, taking responsibility for ourselves.

And let's dramatically cut our cost of living. Today.

Join My New Power Station: https://www.facebook.com/groups/milnertonelectricitywaterfoodcooperative and let's solve our problems, quickly, and forever. Here's to free water, free electricity, free food. As a target. The Zero Marginal Cost Economy by Jeremy Rifkin, says that in a Capitalist society, everything eventually becomes free or close to free. Consider free GPS on your cell phone; consider free calls on your cell phone; consider the world's library on your cell phone; consider free communication on your cell phone; consider that many people can work from anywhere, and no need for transport or public transport; consider free (streaming) TV on your cell phone.

But there is a problem in a capitalist society, and that is "enclosure", as explained in The Voluntary City. Remind me to tell you the story about the Pharaoh.

My friends: the price of water, electricity, and food is coming DOWN! But the fossilised fuel dinosaurs like Eskom are in their death throes, and as monopolies, they mess up a lot of stuff as they die. Yes, Eskom owe's R420 billion. But in the greater scheme of things, that R420 billion is a tiny amount of money compared with alternatives that actually save us money.

Note that I don't think that Eskom really needs to die. I believe that South Africa's electricity supply should be closer to 200 GW than to 20 GW. Huh, you might say "I thought that electricity demand was decreasing." Well that is only because South Africa's biggest export is jobs, followed closely by coal, iron ore, and so many other raw materials that are exported to the world, and then imported by us, making our finished goods costs amongst the highest in the world.

And the only way that Eskom can supply this 200 GW is to allow the public to help it. 

Do we want to now spend another R2 trillion on old technology, coal, uranium, gas, or do we want to rather use that R2 trillion in a different way?

I choose to accept that money has been wasted. I choose to accept that yes, it's a hell (done unconsciously (see Assagioli)) of a lot of money. But if we keep at it, then we haven't learnt.

I choose to acknowledge that a lot of people will become "redundant" as we move to the new system. But Eskom and our government are fixated on the number of people who can be employed by Eskom, or SAA, or Government, without realising that the approximately 200,000 people (two hundred thousand) who supply electricity and coal and building power stations, are doing it so that at least 55,000,000 (55 million) people have electricity and jobs and welfare and health and food.

Winston Churchill made a decision in 1911 to move the British Fleet from coal to oil. It was a dramatically difficult decision, because so many stevedores were involved in shifting coal around ships, whereas one person could turn on a valve and oil would flow. You can read more about that here. Search for "from coal to oil" (and then click down-arrow to get to the article) to learn how difficult decisions are made.

Government's job (according to the Renewable Energy White Paper of 2003) is to create an enabling environment for its citizens. Let us hold our government to their task. And let's do it now.

PS: The cliff on the right hand side of the attached picture shows our current electricity trajectory, even with new coal, and new water and potential new uranium. It doesn't have to be like this. But it's up to us. It's up to us. Today.

May we all be blessed in our coming and going.

We are all blessed.
We are all joyful.
We are all peaceful and at ease.
We are all happy.
We are all filled with loving kindness.
We are all happy.

Maybe we don't feel this all the time. But some of the time we are these things. And if we say these things as affirmations, we change ourselves and the world and each day, each of these things becomes 1 second more, so that eventually it is all day.

There is so much more one can write and say. You can read it all on my blogs and other places on the web.

A reminder that we need two things:
Level playing fields;
Lots of My Power Stations.

Yours sincerely,

David Lipschitz

david@mypowerstation.biz
0741193246, 0662288858
https://www.facebook.com/david.lipschitz
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lipschitz/
My Power Station Technology (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 1080, Milnerton, 7441, South Africa

Contact me and let's continue our discussion.

Integrated Resource Plan 2018

Dear fellow South Africans

re the IRP2018

Nothing has changed since my submissions in 2010. South Africa remains massively short of domestic electricity, water and food.

From an electricity point of view, we still have 40 GW like 20 years ago, but we should have 160 GW. Worldwide growth in electricity, even with Energy Efficiency is 3.6% per annum. That means electricity use should have doubled from 40 GW to 80 in that time, but the population has doubled, so we should be at at least 160 GW.

By our government allowing massive privately funded electricity and water and food growth, in cities, their and our fiscus and tax growth will be accordingly far faster than now. But our government sees constraint and "enclosure" as their means to an end, and so they strangle the economy. Do you feel out of breath? Now you know why!

And see the energy cliff in the 2020's in Slide 15 at https://www.slideshare.net/nazimtiger/power-station-workshop . And you will see the disaster that South Africa is facing.

From a water point of view, in many parts of the country we are making do with 50 litres per person per day, but we should have at least 250 litres per person per day, (including the allowance for industry), to really grow the economy. And we are getting poorer and poorer from a food production and food quality point of view all the time.

Here are my comments from last time. I really don't see the point of commenting again. Government uses my time and resources, free of charge. I don't get thanked, even though I am a very active citizen.

http://saaea.blogspot.com/2010/11/integrated-resource-plan-irp-2010.html

http://www.energy.gov.za/IRP/irp%20files/ORBITAL_RENEWABLE_ENERGY.pdf

And my comments on the NDP also help to inform where we are at.

http://mypowerstation-sa.blogspot.com/2013/09/south-africas-national-development-plan.html

All this research funded my my company.

Regards
David Lipschitz
BSc BSc (Honours) MBA M.Inst.D.
Organising Data, Programming and Bringing Healing

Saving for a rainy day

Dear friends

We put money away for a rainy day.

We have insurance to cover us if something gets stolen or if our house burns down or if our property is damaged.

We have pension plans.

So from these things that we do, we can see that we think about the future and we prepare for it.

However, we are really only between 2 and 4 days away from catastrophe at any time! So why are we planning for events in perhaps 30 years time, but not being prepared for events tomorrow?

So what can possibly go wrong in the next few days which should concern us?

Our electricity supply is becoming more and more precarious. Eskom should be able to supply 42 GW of electricity but on a regular basis it can only supply only around 30 GW. The grid infrastructure is overloaded which puts a large burden on transformers which are reaching end of life in half of their usual life, ie 12 years life instead of 25 years life.

Our grid itself is behind with maintenance and many of our power stations are already beyond end of life and are being kept running, but who knows when they might break.

Our best coal is exported and we use poor grade coal in our own power stations, and everyone knows what happens to their car engines when they use poor grade oil in them!

And then Eskom have shown since Koeberg was built in the 1970's that they cannot manage the build of new power stations which usually take years longer to build and are usually 50 to 100% over budget, yet we continue to allow this.

With all this damage being done to our system, willingly or unwillingly, we are placed in a dilemma.

If our electricity supply is suddenly switched off the following will happen very quickly:

1. Most people are meat eaters. They won't be able to cook their food, unless they have reserves of braai (BBQ) wood. They will get hungry.
2. Backup generators will kick in. Many of these only have 16 hours of reserves which is seen as more than sufficient under normal circumstances, e.g. expected power failures of 1 to 4 hours a day.
3. After 16 hours the Backup generators will stop working.
4. Petrol pumps won't be able to operate because they rely on electricity.
5. All transport will stop within days. There is only 4 days of food in our supply chain, and without transport, our just-in-time systems will not be able to be replenished. And there won't be transport to get diesel to our backup generators.
6. Water pumps won't be able to operate because they rely on electricity. So we will be without water very quickly. We won't have drinking water and we won't be able to flush our toilets. And we can survive for 2 weeks without food, but we cannot survive for 2 days without water. How many people have got water backup at their houses and businesses?
7. Within days, fridges and freezes will get hot and food stored in them will be useless.
8. Within one to four days there will be a complete breakdown in all forms of civil obedience. Hungry, desperate people, who normally aren't violent, will suddenly become violent as they search for food and water.

So should we care? And what solutions are at hand?

If you are interested in finding the solutions for yourselves, then please go to the Renewable Energy Festival at the Green Point Park in Cape Town on Saturday 8th February 2014. Renewable Energy isn't only about electricity. It is also about water, about food, and about self sufficiency. So renew your energy and keep yourselves secure. See you there.

I am also available for consulting. In as little as an hour you can get a handle on what you can do for yourself, your family, your company and if you have staff, your staff. If you need more details, my colleagues and I can also provide whatever depth of knowledge you need.

Love,
David