Absolute zero

There is "almost zero chance" Eskom or another intervening authority, can end load shedding in South Africa any time in the next two years, one of South Africa’s leading energy experts, UCT's Prof Anton Eberhard, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge. He says President Cyril Ramaphosa has felt himself compelled to appoint a new minister for electricity in the side the Presidency, says Eberhard, "because his energy minister has failed him and his public enterprises minister has failed him. Eberhard says that as Eskom’s capacity to generate power fades there is a growing consensus about the case for natural gas as a fuel for generating power, not merely as a replacement for diesel in peaking plant. This might cheer energy Minister Gwede Mantashe but Eberhard dismisses his role in rescuing the economy. Mantashe’s own plan for sorting out load shedding, he says is “reduced and simplistic” and he is astonished that while TotalEnergies has found significant gas deposits offshore near Mossel Bay, the French conglomerate’s efforts to make contact with Mantashe have yielded no response.