Dave Nicholls, (NEXUS Research Programme, retired Eskom Chief Nuclear Officer and newly appointed Necsa Board Chair), delivered a presentation “Load-shedding: what caused it and why the lack of a permanent solution?” at the Free Market Foundation on Wednesday evening, 29 Jan 2020. This is insight from an energy expert with deep insider knowledge of the Utility over the last several decades. It was a depressing message – the fix requires short term and longer term interventions. There is no room for misunderstanding what happened, if the right solution is to be applied. Also, for the longer term solutions, the decisions have to be made right now, as there is a lead time on new build being commissioned. That means if we decide now, it will only just be ready to fill in the gap for when most of the coal fired power stations come off stream. This blogger, Simon Connell, like many, is quite sure the renewables will not save us. They may be fantastic for smaller remote use, but to drive a modern economy, one needs many tens of times more power than they currently boast, and more cheaply, with dispatchability, and yet more green, secure and safe. That essentially means nuclear for SA. The talk is well worth watching on YouTube and the slides can be found here