Minister of Energy Affairs – let them use wood!

Have just listened to the parliamentary debate on what is now called a national emergency and heard Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica say we should go to bed earlier to “grow and get cleverer” and that we should use alternate energy in the form of gas and wood!

Minister Erwin admitted maintenance capacity, coal quality and coal delivery problems had been some of the factors behind the situation.

Websites & Rolling Power Cuts

There has been quite a bit in the media recently about the usefulness of Tshwane and Eskom sites as a means of helping with the management of power cuts.

But they really don’t work! the information is not reliable / usable! See screenshots below

Eskom showed power cuts underway in their meter but stated they weren’t any on 22/01/08

Tshwane showed no interruptions for more than an hour after the lights went out on 24/01/08

I have many other cases where the information was not useful!

Another issue is that unless blessed with a UPS or generator or a wi-fi hotspot, there is nothing to see while the cut is underway! You then tend to look when power is back on and say well maybe its just because I wasn’t look before it went off.

Is there not another solution eg better prediction models, sms notification, warning by “pre shutdown”?

GOOGLE’s Toolbar Beta Requires Internet Explorer

At the moment the Beta for Google’s toolbar requires Internet Explorer to operate.

Is this just the development process or are the runors become reality – GOOSOFT or MICROGLE?