South Africa Power Outages — Lack of Energy Causes Lack of Food

by BWK ~ March 4, 2008

As if the electric problems are not bad enough, pity the poor South African farmers. They go to the trouble of raising food. Then it spoils for lack of power.

Still, there are optimists… “The shock of the power cuts and load shedding is over. We are now in a phase where we are looking for solutions to the problem.”

Ah, what a classical… “Western” approach. Got a problem? Find a technological solution to the problem. But what happens when problems begin to add up? What happens if the frequency of new problems exceeds the ability to arrive at serial solutions? The question is, can “solutions” work when the power decline is cascading downwards in the energy-short future? I guess we’re going to find out.

It might not be pretty.