How cool would it be to own and drive a car in Johannesburg which is emission free? One of the reasons South Africa is a disproportionately large contributor on a per capita basis to the build-up of greenhouse gases is the fact that the country has an under-developed public transport system.
Eskom is to switch to a new ally in its continuing bid to keep the lights on: the sun. The power utility — which has been battling in recent times to meet demand, especially during cold spells — is understood to be finalising an aggressive financial programme to incentivise the use of solar water heaters. Industry sources say close to a million solar-powered water heaters could be subsidised over a five-year period to the tune of R2-billion.
There was a time not too long ago when established business started deserting the CBD. In droves. Some moved to Parktown, shortly afterwards to abandon state-of-the-art buildings for the relative perceived sanctuary of Sandton. Even new office complexes in town stood unoccupied in the general frenzy to put as much distance between corporate headquarters and the CBD.
More than 10 years ago, there was a guy who fixed the motor on our front gate. He drove one of those little Suzuki vans known as a half-loaf. But this was no ordinary half-loaf. He had taken out the engine, put in an electric motor used to drive golf carts and a network of batteries, and he had his own electric car. The only reason we all didn’t drive electric cars, he suggested, was that strong vested interests kept us tied to fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
Fiat has been showing off its cool new Uno in different parts of the country. Made in Brazil, the Fiat Flex can run on both petrol and ethanol. So clever is the technology that the car has a single tank. You sommer throw either petrol or ethanol into it and the engine is smart enough to work out what it is using and adjust accordingly.
Telkom has been a curious creature in recent days. It announced it was buying a company that offers internet connectivity in eight African countries, for R140-million. Why, you have to wonder. Is this a precursor to a disinvestment? Then there was its chief executive, Papi Molotsane, lording over the Telkom ICT Journalist of the Year function, handing out gongs to the journalists who have done the best job in the past year exposing his company as a blight on the landscape
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/ 22 February 2007
At one point while delivering his 11th budget, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel stopped and asked a colleague: "Too much? Too little?" These four words could sum up this week’s watershed budget, which, for the first time in decades, showed a surplus — this despite the fact that the government plans to spend R2-trillion over the next three years.
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/ 22 February 2007
Creating two separate time zones in the country could lead to a massive annual saving of about 500MW of electricity generation, says an internal Eskom study. Eskom’s figures show that it currently costs R10-million per megawatt to build new power capacity, suggesting that energy savings from more efficient use of time zones could obviate the need for R5-billion in new capacity.
Kevin Davie went house-hunting and found the shell of a house just waiting for a makeover. ”I had two goals for the project. The one was to maximise its space potential … I also wanted to see to what extent the house could be designed on green principles.”
Johannesburg at year-end is a ghost town, its stillness inversely matched by the cacophony of blasts and bangs on New Year’s Eve. It’s the same with the stock exchange. Even before the Christmas break, when brokers and dealers had already packed for Plett, the JSE was trading at record levels.