Dear Editor
I first wrote about Medupi on my Blog in August 2010. I suggested that the Medupi build be scrapped and the money be used more constructively. Imagine if the R500 billion wasted by Eskom over the past 10 years had been spent on Renewable Energy. And Eskom is at least R100 billion behind on its Grid Maintenance. And Eskom hasn't met South Africa's emissions standards, and if Medupi is ever completed, it also won't meet its EIA requirements, and according to South African law, it should not have been allowed to start up! What is the point of Environmental Impact Assessments if even the government is allowed to ignore it?
Then on August 9th, 2015, I wrote the following on my BLOG, which was a copy of something I put on Facebook on August 9th, 2014; and I want to know why has this been allowed to get exponentially worse?
Medupi coal power station should be online by now
Just a reminder: Eskom's first 800 MW Medupi Power Station turbine (unit) was meant to go on stream in September 2012. And then we were expecting the other units to come on stream at 9 month intervals, so we should have at least 2,400 MW on stream by now, but we have nothing, and the latest news, from our new Minister of Public Works, Lynne Brown, is that the first 800 MW unit will be on stream in December 2014 and then the units will come on stream at 12 month intervals.
South Africans are being held to ransom by our government, Department of Energy, Eskom officials, and their consultants, advisors, contractors, staff, and foreign suppliers. They are impeding growth and contributing to South Africa's debt crisis, unemployment, exchange rate crisis, inflation, and the possibility that South Africa might be downgraded to Junk Bond Status. Foreign Investors cannot invest in "Junk Bonds" and will sell their South African debt (bonds) and possibly investments, potentially causing a massive crash in our stock market and possibly worse strikes and hardship. But the situation doesn't need to be like this. We can change it.
The situation must change. (Added March 2019: Maybe South Africans, especially the jobless or soon to be jobless will wake up in May, and change South Africa!)
South African citizens must take responsibility for themselves and not rely on government to help anymore regarding electricity provision, although government obviously still has a role to play.
Yours faithfully
David Lipschitz
Ph 074 119 3246
Showing posts with label medupi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medupi. Show all posts
Friday, March 15, 2019
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Play the cards right - David Lipschitz's Letter in the Cape Times on 1st December 2017
Much is being written about Eskom's failure and the reasons for it.
It is sobering to think that when Medupi coal power station was originally budgeted, it was forecasted to be complete by November 2015, and Kusile by April 2017. If this 9.6 GW was already on the grid, the fiscus would be earning R286 billion more per annum and another two million people would be employed. Instead of being "R50 billion under budget", as Minister Malusi Gigaba recently said, we would be R300 bn over-budget.
It is time for people to realise that you can tax the input side of the economy as much as you like, but it is the output side of the economy that will make you orders of magnitude more money in income, and also in savings due to not having to pay out so much unemployment benefit.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
CNBC Interview on 23rd June 2015: David Lipschitz in the news
"National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) begins its public hearings into Eskom's 25.3 per cent tariff increase application for the 2015-16 financial year. To discuss this CNBC Africa is joined by David Lipschitz, energy analyst at My Power Station: Software, Energy, Power."
And the video is here. I was interviewed on CNBC Africa's Open Exchange Program, by Tumisho Grater.
And CNBC's article is here.
On Facebook. On Twitter. On Google+.
And on CNBC Africa's daily news feed here. Click on:
And the video is here. I was interviewed on CNBC Africa's Open Exchange Program, by Tumisho Grater.
And CNBC's article is here.
On Facebook. On Twitter. On Google+.
And on CNBC Africa's daily news feed here. Click on:
"ESKOM PLEADS FOR TARIFF HIKE, BIG BUSINESS WARNS OF JOB LOSSES"
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Eskom's workers help push rand to new low
Our erstwhile politicians and Eskom's workers are pushing the Rand to new lows. Official unemployment is at 37.8%, our worst ever.
And the 2 million unemployed people who could have work if only Medupi and Kusile Coal Power Stations were online, like they should be, don't realise that they need to go to Lephalale (Ellisras) and tell Eskom's workers to do their jobs!
Oil price has increased from R743.38 per barrel on 30th May to R806.98 today. 8.5% higher.
Rand at 12.44 to the $
13.99 to the Euro
19.04 to the Pound
$ is high against Euro at 1.12, but it has been as low as 1.4, which would make the Rand Euro 17.42!!!
And the 2 million unemployed people who could have work if only Medupi and Kusile Coal Power Stations were online, like they should be, don't realise that they need to go to Lephalale (Ellisras) and tell Eskom's workers to do their jobs!
Oil price has increased from R743.38 per barrel on 30th May to R806.98 today. 8.5% higher.
Rand at 12.44 to the $
13.99 to the Euro
19.04 to the Pound
$ is high against Euro at 1.12, but it has been as low as 1.4, which would make the Rand Euro 17.42!!!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Does anyone know what R100 Billion is?
R100 Billion is R100,000,000,000 or 1 with 11 zeros after it or 10^11 in scientific notation.
Can you picture 100,000,000,000 centimeters?
What is 100,000,000,000 centimeters?
The distance to the moon is 384,403 km which is 384,403,000 metres which is 38,440,300,000 cms which is 38 billion which is still less than 100 billion!! So 100 billion centimeters is about 3 times the distance from the earth to the moon in centimeters.
We are continuously told by government that there's no money, but if we think differently we will suddenly find we have ample money.
The South African government spent R7 billion on consultants last year to mainly write reports which are never going to be used or implemented. The R7 billion could have bought 700,000 R10,000 Solar Water Heaters. The R7 billion could have paid proper teachers salaries.
One way to find the money is to use the R100 billion for the Medupi power station in a different way. Stop the Medupi new power station development, pay the fines, and use the remaining R70 billion (my guess) for R30 billion of Solar Water Heaters (20GW of energy instead of 5GW of energy), R7 Billion for the teachers, and "change" for: feed in tariffs; zero VAT on renewable energy products; 30% rebates on all solar water and renewable energy installations; tax credits; R10 billion for training and skills transfer from Germany, Spain, USA, Australia, etc.
I had a meeting with an accountant today and did a presentation about thinking differently and mentioned the R100 billion. He said what can we do & we should concentrate on the "small numbers" that we can do something about. I said what's the turnover of your biggest client? He said R200 million. I said that is 500 times less than what the government is spending (on 1 power station and we need 4 more in 5 to 10 years and another 16 after that!! - if we don't change our thinking) and accountants have a huge amount of education and annual courses, exams, etc. The government employee probably doesn't have this level of financial knowledge. How is it that she can understand a figure 500 times more than he can?
The point is that the citizens of the world pay these huge figures when we really don't need to. The governments of the world have as much money as they need. They just print it. It's called inflation. Let's use some of this money to rectify our mistakes so that we don't need a cost of living anymore - and so that we can have real deflation where our money is worth more each day instead of less each day.
Please visit My Power Station for more information about how you can reduce your personal carbon footprint today. Then please read "David Lipschitz Facebook Campaign to Make South Africa a Better Place" and write to our ministers and get the rules of the game changed. Email addresses are provided in the Facebook article.
Ke Nako
The time is now.
Solar Regards,
David
Can you picture 100,000,000,000 centimeters?
What is 100,000,000,000 centimeters?
The distance to the moon is 384,403 km which is 384,403,000 metres which is 38,440,300,000 cms which is 38 billion which is still less than 100 billion!! So 100 billion centimeters is about 3 times the distance from the earth to the moon in centimeters.
We are continuously told by government that there's no money, but if we think differently we will suddenly find we have ample money.
The South African government spent R7 billion on consultants last year to mainly write reports which are never going to be used or implemented. The R7 billion could have bought 700,000 R10,000 Solar Water Heaters. The R7 billion could have paid proper teachers salaries.
One way to find the money is to use the R100 billion for the Medupi power station in a different way. Stop the Medupi new power station development, pay the fines, and use the remaining R70 billion (my guess) for R30 billion of Solar Water Heaters (20GW of energy instead of 5GW of energy), R7 Billion for the teachers, and "change" for: feed in tariffs; zero VAT on renewable energy products; 30% rebates on all solar water and renewable energy installations; tax credits; R10 billion for training and skills transfer from Germany, Spain, USA, Australia, etc.
I had a meeting with an accountant today and did a presentation about thinking differently and mentioned the R100 billion. He said what can we do & we should concentrate on the "small numbers" that we can do something about. I said what's the turnover of your biggest client? He said R200 million. I said that is 500 times less than what the government is spending (on 1 power station and we need 4 more in 5 to 10 years and another 16 after that!! - if we don't change our thinking) and accountants have a huge amount of education and annual courses, exams, etc. The government employee probably doesn't have this level of financial knowledge. How is it that she can understand a figure 500 times more than he can?
The point is that the citizens of the world pay these huge figures when we really don't need to. The governments of the world have as much money as they need. They just print it. It's called inflation. Let's use some of this money to rectify our mistakes so that we don't need a cost of living anymore - and so that we can have real deflation where our money is worth more each day instead of less each day.
Please visit My Power Station for more information about how you can reduce your personal carbon footprint today. Then please read "David Lipschitz Facebook Campaign to Make South Africa a Better Place" and write to our ministers and get the rules of the game changed. Email addresses are provided in the Facebook article.
Ke Nako
The time is now.
Solar Regards,
David
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