How do I sue ESK'MON!?

The power has just cut out at work here in Rosebank. Again. The only reason I'm able to post now is because we have a generator system, a backup for this sort of scenario. But others are not so fortunate. And this is happening like every freaking day.

This morning before I left for work the power was off. When I arrived home from work, off again. At work it went off twice. Lord knows how businesses deal with power outages during the lunch break; especially fast food places. That's when a lot of office workers (read: people with bucks) provide a surge of commerce. Keep this up and its basically like a Mafioso shooting you at the kneecaps. You're going be out of business big time.

I suppose salads aren't a problem to make for a power(less) lunch. Maybe we'll see some innovation. Obviously they can cook the stuff in advance and have it on standby, kept warm in special bags a la Mr. Delivery. Which reminds me; surely home deliveries could do really really well when people are paralysed (unable to cook in one suburb) whilst elsewhere food can be cooked and delivered. Anyone listening?

Personally the outages haven't affected me that much. Er...until today. |When I wanted to eat breakfast this morning the milk was vrot. I checked the label and it was due to go off after from the 25th (tomorrow) onwards. So who can I sue? Clover, or Eskom? Hundreds of thousands of other people are going through the same thing. Eeesh. And food prices are set to rocket as farmer's pass on their costs to us. Tourism is also likely to suffer. We may not be able to hold the 2010 World Cup. If you were sitting in Germany or Korea, would you want to visit a country that can't keep and lights on and is overrun with hijackers, murderers, corrupts commissioners and presidents? We'd better shape up or we are going to be a pariah again, as in a joke, a Bart Simsonesque underachieving cautionary tale of a country.

Seems like one of the habits we'll be changing in the immediate future is the milk we buy. Longlife from now on. I wonder what else? If everything is going to get expensive, will we see more people riding bicycles to work and eating less meat, or are we going to take the road more travelled (by car) and insist, force things to remain convenient and easily consumed, despite the obvious - that we are well past this sell by date?

Meanwhile, a tip for Eskom: why is Gauteng bearing the brunt of these blackouts. This is the engine of the subcontinent. Why not just turn off Bloemfontein?

UK's take on SA's Power Cuts (GUARDIAN)

Power cuts a good sign, sceptical South Africans told

The South African government has told millions of people left in the dark by rolling power cuts that have swept the country over the past week, and which are likely to go on for years, to look on the bright side.
The blackouts are the result of surging demand for power caused by a booming economy, it says. But as the lights go off more frequently and for longer periods, the national mood has darkened.

Hospitals have lost power in the middle of operations, prompting doctors to warn it is only a matter of time before someone dies as a result.
Huge traffic jams have clogged cities as traffic lights, known as "robots" in South Africa, cut out. Commuters in Pretoria set fire to six trains on Friday evening after services were delayed for two hours by the loss of power.

The sound of generators, part of the background noise of many African cities, can now also be heard in Johannesburg. Restaurants coping with up to thee power outages a day are emphasising the benefits of candlelit dinners.

Being South Africa, there's also the security issue. A Johannesburg woman was robbed with a gun pressed to her head because the electronic gate to her home would not open.

More.

Urgent Message From Eskom

LOAD SHEDDING MESSAGE TO ALL SOUTHERN AFRICAN RESIDENTS

In a drive to save on electricity consumption, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off till further notice.

Kindly postpone all hopes and dreams...

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Eskom Management

ESKOM: We're Learning

So we've had a few irritating periods of load shedding, followed by announcements to say that load shedding won't happen for several days. What does this mean? It means we're learning that if we DO SOMETHING, if we co-operate, if we get those messages that we once ignored on TV and get up and turn off a few lights etc., it can save us the bother of having everything going off for a few hours.

One of the nasty consequences, in Jozi in particular, of a blackout is that your perimeter fencing goes off; in other words your fortified prison no longer works. Sit in the dark, grab a knife, hold thumbs and pray it comes back on before the Tsotsi's find your house...

That's great. I hope though that we'll be able to maintain these habits, rather than have to endure a schoolyard system. What's a schoolyard system? It means behaving reasonably for a limited time, then misbehaving, being taught a lesson, and repeating the process about a gazillion times. It's not very nice because everyone suffers.

Hopefully, at this early stage, we will have learnt that in terms of wasting energy, (using) less is more (for all). There's one teeny tiny snag though. Let's say we collectively manage to cut down our consumption, thereby raising capacity, what also happens is that there will then be a semi-artificial situation created where additional users get added to the grid (because there's theoretically additional electricity available).

Think about it: the housing rollout in South Africa also includes the rollout of electricity en masse. Whatever we don't use, at the end of the day, is going to be used up by additional users. In the this sense our electrical feature in South Africa seems increasingly, well, dim. The roll out of Nuclear Power stations is at least 10 years away, and they will only come online if the costs of inflation don't go through the roof. That's also not guaranteed. But, I digress. I need to send off this email before the power goes out in the building (something that's happening more and more often eeek!)

Here's more:
Load shedding in Tshwane
Matric students (in Pakistan) blame results on blackout nights of study
Integrated load shedding schedule for Cape Town and the Western Cape
Eskom Load Shedding Schedule
What to expect and what you need to know about the current shortfall of electricity in the Western Cape