Pincushion Protea Rob Dempster
Protea Gardens (PG)
Howick (uMngeni)
PG Blog
The African National Congress
Eskom, and Nikola Tesla
Best viewed using a PC/Laptop
Pincushion Protea

About 10 years after the African National Conference (ANC) started to govern South Africa (and promised, "A Better Life for All"), it was advised that the country's electricity generation capacity needed to be increased. The advice was ignored. The two huge coal fired power stations (Kusile and Medupi) that are STILL being built speak volumes to the problem that the ANC Gevernment has become. Eskom, the Electricity Supply Commision that was once lauded globally, is now a wreck, and also wrecking havoc on ALL of South Africa.

To say that this is a huge dissapointment, would be an acute understatement. An opportunity for Africans, and more particularly Black South Africans, to show the world how a long struggle for freedom could be transformed into, "A Better Life for All!". South Africans are now in the dark (Load Shedding [LS]), sometimes for 10 hours per day.

Five or more years ago my son suggested we buy a generator to alleviate ourselves from the inconvenience and disrruption caused by LS. I was not keen. He bought one, and it did what he said it would. The inconvenience and disruption did not dissapear, but it was significantly reduced. Two years ago Edith and I retired to Howick. We spent a year renting in the Amber Valley Retirement Village waiting for our cottage to be built at Protea Gardens. We bought and 2.4 kVA inverter to replace the generator. The inverter was configured into the cottage build and that has meant all the lights and digital equipment such as computers, the Internet and the TV work, all the time.

Now after a year in our cottage we are taking the next big step, Solar Panels and an attempt mostly be completely independent of Eskom and dare I say it, the South African Government. Given that we normally do not use a lot of electricity during the day, we may have an excess. Given that we cannot currently sell this excess to the South African Government, a Tesla Coil may be the answer. Nikola Tesla played a massive role in the development of the technology that makes the availabilty of electricity in our homes possible. This post is in a sense a tribute to Nikola Tesla and the first streetlights being turned on in a street in Buffalo, New York, or should that be Portland, Oregon

To view a larger image, click on a thumb-nail. Click anywhere within the browser context in order to remove it.
Starred thumbnails have an accompanying comment that pops up and remains up, while the mouse pointer is over the thumb-nail.

thumb nail
N.Tesla.jpg
*

I would like to think that some of these links would interest almost everyone. Some are more technical. The choices are yours to make.

Some links

If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or plain criticism, I would appreciate it if you would communicate the same to me.

Fern Hill left fern frond E-mail address
[email protected]
   www.robdempster.com My Home Page icon Fern Hill right fern frond