ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

-
Image
  By   Daniel Puchert Partially state-owned telecommunications company Telkom announced in its financial results for the year ending 31 March 2025 that its ADSL subscribers had more than halved to under 30,000. According to the company’s operational data, ADSL lines decreased from 64,959 in March 2024 to 29,770. This 54.2% decline highlights that the legacy broadband technology is slowly approaching the end of the road. Telkom’s ADSL business peaked at the end of March 2016 with 1.01 million subscribers — two years after fibre upstart Vumatel  broke ground in Parkhurst . What followed was a sharp decline in Telkom ADSL subscribers. Customers connected to its copper networks decreased by more than 500,000 over the next four years. This was partly driven by Telkom itself, which began actively switching off its copper network in some neighbourhoods. If it did not have fibre in the area, it would offer a “fixed line lookalike” wireless service that ran over its cellular ...
Post a Comment

Fishermen, oyster farmers fear power-generating ship will kill business

-

 18 June 2021 - 12:19

BY REUTERS
The seafood sellers fear the 415 megawatt ship — to be moored for two decades at Saldanha Bay, 140km north of Cape Town — will pump hot water into the bay and make endless noise, spoiling farmed oysters and scaring off fish as Africa's most industrialised country scrambles to fix electricity problems.
The seafood sellers fear the 415 megawatt ship — to be moored for two decades at Saldanha Bay, 140km north of Cape Town — will pump hot water into the bay and make endless noise, spoiling farmed oysters and scaring off fish as Africa's most industrialised country scrambles to fix electricity problems.
Image: http://www.karpowership.com/en/photos

A floating gas-turbine generator meant to alleviate SA's crippling power cuts has run into objections by oyster farmers and small-scale fishermen, who fear the environmental damage will destroy their livelihoods.

ADVERTISEMENT

The seafood sellers fear the 415 megawatt ship — to be moored for two decades at Saldanha Bay, 140km north of Cape Town — will pump hot water into the bay and make endless noise, spoiling farmed oysters and scaring off fish as Africa's most industrialised country scrambles to fix electricity problems.

Responding to complaints by the Green Connection environmental justice group, the South African government on June 11 suspended an environmental authorisation application for operator Karpowership in Saldanha Bay. It cited the Green Connection's allegation that Karpowership failed to conduct specialist studies on underwater engine noise.

“Our team believes that this complaint is without merit,” Karpowership SA spokesperson Kay Sexwale said on Wednesday.

Saldanha Bay is SA's first sea-based aquaculture zone, with 16 new entrants welcomed last year to an industry worth around one billion rand ($72 million) annually, Fisheries Department officials said.

Eskom to directly distribute energy and collect revenue on behalf of struggling municipalities, says Mabuza

Deputy president David Mabuza has announced that Eskom will take over the distribution of energy for debt-ridden municipalities, and will also bill ...
POLITICS
2 weeks ago

DD Mabuza worried about 'racial tone' when discussing Eskom problems

Deputy president David Mabuza has urged South Africans to stop making problems at Eskom about race.
POLITICS
2 weeks ago
ADVERTISEMENT

A few minutes from the slipway, multicoloured buoys and floating black rafts help pinpoint different farm locations, as workers pull up long lines of clinging mussels or exotic oysters fattened in the nutrient-rich waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

ADVERTISING

“We don't believe it can just be benign, sitting there, because it is generating hot water and it is generating a noise factor which can affect the organisms we cultivate,” said Kevin Ruck, owner of Blue Sapphire Pearls oyster farm and a trained marine biologist.

Ruck is worried that hot water discharge from the Karpowership vessel may stimulate harmful algae blooms that could render his succulent oysters inedible.

Started in 2008, his company harvests up to a million Pacific oysters a year, mainly for the domestic market, but also exported live to China.

In February, scientists warned that industrial noise beneath the ocean surface was disrupting marine animals' ability to mate, feed and even evade predators.

But prolonged delays to Karpowership's bid, which includes more ships at two east coast ports, could disrupt SA's plan to plug its energy shortfall with 2,000MW of emergency power.

Karpowership SA said its environmental impact assessments for all three sites “demonstrate little impact to the surrounding air and water environments.”

But, for Saldanha Bay skipper Christie Links, the risks are too great.

“Who says the many fish species we depend on will still come into the bay if Karpowership is here?”  

subscribe

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise?

-
Image
  There are a lot of people, but the oceans are very big.   Rosley Majid/EyeEm via Getty Images If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise? March 29, 2021 2.07pm SAST Author Tony E. Wong Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology Disclosure statement Tony E. Wong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners Rochester Institute of Technology  provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. The Conversation is funded by the National Research Foundation, eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Wester...
Read more

Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

-
Image
  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen...
Read more

Which countries have the world’s largest coal reserves?

-
Image
  Visual Capitalist Elements   | September 15, 2021 | 8:58 am   Intelligence   Australia   USA   Coal   The Countries With the Largest Coal Reserves Cheap and abundant coal remains one of the largest sources of energy worldwide, even as governments set out goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While jurisdictions in Europe and North America have been phasing out coal use in power generation, it has been on the rise in Asia. China and India are scrambling to provide electricity to a growing population and relying on coal power plants to meet demands despite the environmental costs. SIGN UP FOR THE ENERGY DIGEST Sign Up This infographic takes a look into the  BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 , and the 11 countries that make up  89%  of the coal reserves globally. Coal Reserves, by Country While countries need to phase out coal by 2040 to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, consumption in key ...
Read more