Waainek Windfarm
The Waainek Windfarm is complete and now operational, putting around 24MW into the grid. One of the unseen benefits of this project was the upgrading of the first few kilometres of the Highlands road and, despite the frequent recent rains, it is still in a fair state of repair.
Waainek Windfarm
The Waainek Windfarm is complete and now operational, putting around 24MW into the grid. One of the unseen benefits of this project was the upgrading of the first few kilometres of the Highlands road and, despite the frequent recent rains, it is still in a fair state of repair.
Standing near the windmills is a surreal experience. They spin almost silently in the mist, and it is hard to realise that each is putting close to 3MW of clean power into the system. That’s equivalent to three thousand kettles! In contrast to Eskom’s ghastly sulphur-belching coal-burning monstrosities, this is surely the way to go? The difference is, of course, that these wind farms are privately owned, so no Minister’s wife can earn a fortune by being “appointed” to the board running them…
Sometimes you will see white lights at the top of the towers, sometimes red. The red lights warn that the blades are turning, the white lights that they are immobile.
South Africa’s current drought
With the exception of our own Albany area, and the immediate coastline from Plettenberg Bay to the Great Fish River, the entire sub-continent is gripped in drought. KZN and all the inland areas are as dry as a bone, with orange dust-filled skies dominating the Highveld and daily temperatures in the high 30’s. A phone call from Livingstone, Zambia, revealed that temperatures there have recently been between 40 and 45C. However the Eastern Cape, which is typically periodically gripped by similar droughts, has been spared, and frequent rains all through winter and into spring have kept dams full and the bush lush.
SA’s nuclear future
There is conjecture that the recently advised government-led nuclear energy programme may be misdirected. In a report earlier this month on Fin-24.com by Tom Blees, entitled “SA barking up the wrong nuclear tree – expert”, it is claimed that technology exists to re-use some of the radioactive wastes produced by atomic power stations like Koeberg, and that the so-called “old” technology has been superseded by new designs that consume a proportion of their own wastes.
However, our Koeberg reactor was a tried-and-tested French design – a country that pioneered nuclear energy to provide 60% of its electricity without a single glitch in 45 years. Maybe the ‘expert’ would like to try out a new technology test-reactor in his own back yard, before we install 8000MW of them here first?
Great Fish River hydro scheme?
A substantial proportion of the water from the Gariep Dam on the Orange River is directed through the 80km tunnel to the Grassridge dam, north of Cradock. Some of this then serves the irrigation schemes south of Cradock, and some is diverted to the Sundays River citrus irrigation schemes.
However, much of this fresh water flows down the lower Great Fish River, through various nature reserves and over the drifts at Double Drift and Committees Drift, and finally into the sea at Fish River Mouth. Upstream of the estuary is a substantial gorge with a gentle upstream gradient, backing up eventually into the Great Fish River Reserve.
This is an area of low human inhabitation and little land use. What a superb place to build a hydro-electric scheme that would use the energy potential of this water before it enters the estuary!
The gorge itself provides numerous dam sites, the lake would be long and deep, and yet have a relatively small footprint without flooding much land, and the power produced would be carbon and pollutant free. Why has no one thought of this?
Contacts for Makana Enviro-News:
Nikki Köhly:
n.kohly@ru.ac.za,
046 603 7205
Jenny Gon:
j-gon@intekom.co.za,
046 622 5822
Nick James:
nickjames@intekom.co.za,
082 575 9781
Philip Machanick:
p.machanick@ru.ac.za,
046 603 8635
Tim Bull:
timothybull05@aol.com,
046 622 6044,
076 289 5122;
Rod Amner
r.amner@ru.ac.za,
046 603 7123.
