Why the Lights Are Going Out in South Africa - BBC News

May 11, 2023 | South Africa's President Ramaphosa says its energy crisis is an "existential threat" to South Africa's economy and social fabric. He's promising to bring the daily power cuts "to an end", but already the country has experienced hours of blackouts almost every day this year. So what's being done to actually fix South Africa's power issue?

Saudi Aramco Chief Says Europe’s Plans on Energy Crisis Are Not Helpful

THE GUARDIAN: Amin Nasser says plans to cap bills and tax energy companies are not long-term solutions

Saudi Aramco’s Amin Nasser said the root cause of the energy crisis had come from underinvestment in fossil fuels. Photograph: Ahmed Yosri/Reuters
The chief executive of Saudi Aramco has said European governments’ efforts to tackle the energy crisis are “not helpful”.

Amin Nasser, who leads the world’s largest oil exporter, said plans to cap consumer bills and tax energy companies were not long-term solutions to the global crisis.

Nasser told a forum in Switzerland: “Freezing or capping energy bills might help consumers in the short term, but it does not address the real causes and is not the long-term solution.

“And taxing companies when you want them to increase production is clearly not helpful.” » | Alex Lawson, Energy correspondent | Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Liz Truss Making Britons ‘Foot the Bill’ for Energy Plan, Says Keir Starmer

Ovo Energy Boss Proposes Plan to Stave Off Household Bill Crisis

Read the article here.

Britain Is Heading Into a Nightmarish Winter

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OPINION: GUEST ESSAY
THE NEW YORK TIMES: LONDON — Long lines outside gas stations. Panicked drivers fighting one another as the pumps run dry. Soldiers deployed to distribute fuel across the country. And in the background, the pandemic stretching on, food rotting in fields and families sinking into poverty. This is Britain in 2021.

Not long ago, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted all pandemic restrictions in July, the mood across the country was cautiously optimistic. A successful vaccine rollout had finally restored cherished freedoms to daily life: visiting friends and family in their homes, socializing with strangers, eating in restaurants. Cases of the virus continued to multiply, but the number of hospitalizations and deaths fell markedly. The nightmare, it seemed, was over.

But any sense of normality has been banished in the past few weeks. A dramatic fuel crisis, caused in large part by a lack of truck drivers and which at its peak forced around a third of all gas stations to close, is only the most glaring concern.

A convergence of problems — a global gas shortage, rising energy and food prices, supply-chain issues and the Conservatives’ decision to slash welfare — has cast the country’s future in darkness. Even Mr. Johnson, known for his boosterish optimism and bonhomie, has struggled to make light of the situation.

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One of the main causes of this predicament is Brexit, or at least the government’s handling of Brexit. Britain’s protracted departure from the bloc, undertaken without any real effort by Mr. Johnson to ensure a smooth transition, led to an exodus of European workers — a process then compounded by the pandemic. As many as 1.3 million overseas nationals left Britain between July 2019 and September 2020. Read the whole essay here » | Samuel Earle | Friday, October 1, 2021