It was an interesting day yesterday.
Firstly, there was a student demonstration outside campus over plans to increase tuition fees next year. Protestors were not allowed on campus, and after a couple of hours of singing and banging drums it seems several students tried to break through the gates, at which point the police moved in and enthusiastically dispersed them with salvos of rubber bullets and tear-gas. Since the geology department overlooks the main entrance, we all got a grandstand view; fortunately, it seems that no-one was injured.
Ten minutes later, we were plunged into darkness due to a “load-shedding” exercise by the power company: increased energy usage in the current cold and damp weather is apparently straining the grid to breaking point, so successive districts around the city are being subjected to 2 or 3 hour rolling blackouts to prevent the entire system melting down.
Living here is a real eye-opener sometimes.
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Just so long as Eskom doesn’t decide to cut the power on Sunday evening… There could be one or two displeased rugby fans in that case!
Hey, rolling blackouts are the way of the future. We’ve been doing it for years.
Welcome to Africa…
When the electricity price has to go up a fair bit to stop the blackouts, you’ll see the protests!
In Ontario, we’ll have those in 10 years, if we project the consequences of their slow progress on the nuclear plants.
Load-shedding is a routine part of summer in India, if you’re lucky, you get the early morning slot when it isn’t so hot. An interesting new sport: surfing rolling blackouts. Find out where they are and when and avoid accordingly.
I really enjoy your more technical posts but am to cowed to comment there, so here you are.