Archive for 'South Africa'
South African Sounds by Day and Night
Soothing sounds of nature from the Plumari Lodge, only an hour from the metro area of Johannesburg which houses over eight million people.
Children Dance in the Richtersveld
Take a look at South Africa’s Richtersveld as seen through the eyes of Nama children, who danced for us on the banks of the Orange River, along the Namibian border.
It was followed by a picnic lunch consisting of grilled fish, game stew, salads and cheese……and of course, a taste of the local beer. You’ll be incredibly moved and if the dancing alone doesn’t bring on a smile, the face below most certainly will. See if you can find her in the videos.
Videos of their performance below:
South Africa’s Joule Electric Car
Optimal Energy CEO Kobus Meiring Presenting the Joule Electric Car
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary which shows the roles of American automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the US government in stopping production of electric cars in the US, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. That turned out to be bad news, both for General Motors and American consumers, but it also opened up opportunities for electric car manufacturers abroad.
Optimal Energy, a Cape Town-based company, is trying to position itself as a leader in the field with its Joule all-electric vehicle, which was first unveiled two months ago at the 2008 Paris Motor Shop.
We visited Optimal Energy’s offices – scattered throughout an upscale shopping plaza – earlier this week to see a business presentation by CEO Kobus Meiring. He made a convincing case for the Joule, which was summed up nicely by fellow blogger Chris Morrison.
The car itself didn’t really do it for me – I am a much bigger fan of public transportation projects, like South Africa’s 2010 public transport plan, than any mere personal automobile. But what did fascinate me is how Meiring’s career evolution – from developing military helicopters to telescopes to electric cars – is representative of the evolution of South Africa’s engineering field. Now that South Africa is no longer ruled by a White nationalist government focused on strengthening its military, the country’s engineers are able to work on projects and start companies that make a positive social impact.
Going back to my question of trade versus aid, what is the social benefit of investing in a company like Optimal Energy? On the surface such an investment seems promising. Nearly 100 engineers are given jobs to design the cars. South African construction companies are employed to build manufacturing plants. And hundreds of semi-skilled workers are given decent paying jobs to manufacture the vehicles. This largely explains why Optimal Energy’s largest investor is the Department of Science and Technology of the South African government.
But a question by Graeme Addison, a veteran science journalist and one of the organizers of our tour, revealed an obstacle to South Africa’s multicultural integration of engineers and other professionals. In not so many words Addison essentially asked Meiring how many of his engineers are Black South Africans. We didn’t get a figure, but I would assume only a handful. The Black Economic Empowerment program of February 2007 set a quota system which ensures that a certain percentage of managerial and directorial positions are given to non-White South Africans. Addison later told me that this often means that young Black South Africans straight out of university are given managerial positions without ever going through the apprenticeship and training programs which lead to real skills development.
Meiring, however, said there has been a recent increase in the number of Black engineers graduating from universities and thinks that integration in the field of engineering is progressing. Still, I think that so-called philanthro-capitalist foundations could do a great thing by investing in Optimal Energy, but with the clause that they must hire and train more Black and female engineers. Such an investment could derive both a large social and economic return.
And Optimal Energy sure wouldn’t mind the extra capital. A post written last month by Domenick Yoney says the recent financial collapse has stalled the Joule’s launch and that Meiring and company will need to raise another $130 million before they are able to build an assembly plant and get their product on the road.
You can listen to an MP3 of Meiring’s entire presentation on the Brand South Africa Blog.
DeBeers offshore Diamond Mine: Peace in Africa
It’s a very unusual feeling. Rocking back and forth, back and forth and back again. No land in sight and a boat that has been cut in two and rebuilt with an actual mine in the middle beneath your feet.
The rocking back and forth can be dealt with via a strong stomach and some […]
Cape Town by the sky
I finally managed to string together the video of my trip around Cape Town via the sky.
The helicopter ride (my first) was smooth and absolutely incredible.
I honestly didn’t ever realise how absolutely stunning and unique Cape Town is until this trip. I envy Cape Town folk and honestly don’t even think that they […]
Greenpoint stadium as seen from the Sky
While taking a helicopter flight around Cape Town I noticed the Greenpoint stadium.
It looks incredible. People tell me that there are some issues right now but from where I was sitting it looked magnificent.
For more content from WeBlogTheWorld bloggers visit the WeBlogTheWorld South Africa website.
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3.8km is a long way whether you look at it vertically, horizontally or any other way you can think of. Now think of going down. Deep down in the pit of the Earth.
TauTona is AngloGold Ashanti’s Mine near Carletonville in Johannesburg. Let me be straight with you here, it’s deep and you don’t really […]
America Gives South Africa Tourism Love
The United States has overtaken Germany as the second-biggest market for South African tourism, according to Wendy Tiou, Global Manager of Communications for South Africa Tourism. (The U.K. is number one, of course).
We spoke over lunch at Moyo, an open-air Johannesburg restaurant set in a park near the zoo. Moyo serves dishes from all parts of the country, including delicious curries, wild game and desserts that I’d never seen before and wish to meet again.
Even more interesting than the food is the setting, with singers and dancers and drummers, and lamps that look like happy white jellyfish.
During the middle of the interview I had my face painted in a kind of sunshine warrior design. How often does that happen to you during lunch?
South Africa is hosting the next World Cup, in 2010. The World Cup, as most Americans don’t know, is the world’s biggest sporting event. We hosted in 1994. Brazil won, remember? Perhaps we can build on Obama’s victory and cement our improved relations with the rest of the world by finally appreciating “soccer.”
There are already signs counting down the days, even the seconds, until the first match. As every host country has learned, preparations are overwhelming, but Ms. Tiou sounded confident that stadiums will be ready and there will be plenty of beds for the 450,000 visitors that are expected. The country is eager to play host.
Tourism has grown substantially overall, not just from America. And why not? It’s a gorgeous country, the weather is great, the people are interesting, it has a fascinating human narrative, dynamic, cross-cultural, full of challenges and opportunities, and is defining itself anew.
If you want adventure travel, vineyard outings, ancient human history, city culture – it’s all here, and with the infrastructure, exchange rate and English language to make the journey an easy one for Americans and other first-world dwellers. It’s a long haul, but if you have a couple of weeks it’s well worth the jet lag.
Finding Diamonds in the Rough Seas
For the 60 men and three women aboard the Peace of Africa, diamonds aren’t a luxury, they’re a career choice. Finding the gems requires the latest technology and creates a Jacques Cousteau-like adventure.
The Peace of Africa is a $1 billion South African rand ($110 million U.S.) piece of high-tech engineering designed to maximize the yield of precious gems from the ocean floor at a minimal cost and impact. The process may seem simplistic — find diamond “hot spots,” scrape along the floor to loosen the gravel and minerals, vacuum up the mess, and sort through what you got. The mining operation has been fully automated so that no human hands touch or even see the diamonds until they reach a secure facility on shore.
The system processes about 10,000 cubic meters of water and minerals per day. First the minerals are washed and then dried, and sorted to identify the materials most likely to be diamonds. The pieces are then x-rayed to illuminate the diamonds so that they can be identified, and then immediately spit out of the system and canned and sealed without a finger being laid on them.
One of the biggest challenges is figuring out what to keep and what to throw away, according to Elizly Steyn, the ship’s metallurgist. Steyn works for the De Beers Group, the diamond business that own and operates the ship. She’s part of a team that monitors a steady stream of data to optimize the diamond yields. The company’s target is 1000 carats of diamonds per day, or 200,000 carats per year, which includes down time for maintenance, technical glitches, and bad weather. Based on the information collected from the sonar scanning, automated underwater vessels, and real-time analysis, the filtering system is set up to only extract pieces between 2 and 19 millimeters in size, Steyn says. This results in the largest diamonds automatically being tossed overboard — not what you would expect. “It would cost more to process the additional material than you’d get back from the one large diamond you might find every six months,” says Steyn.
The diamonds were formed about 2.2 million years ago, and then thrust to the surface by volcanoes around 700 million years later, according to Tom Tweedy of De Beers. He says that while diamond mining started in South Africa about 100 years ago, no one bothered to look under the ocean until a Texas oil man suggested doing so in the 1960s after diamonds were found on the shore. The diamonds are harvested by “the crawler,” a remote controlled bulldozer-like vehicle that rests on the ocean floor and scrapes the bottom until the clay is reached. Steyn says only the occasional fish gets caught up in the vacuum. Most of the sea floor at around 125 meters is barren of vegetation. The crawler costs about $1 million U.S., so it is too expensive to keep a spare on board. When it stops working, as happened during our visit, so does the mining operation.
The crawler takes about 1 1/2 hours to retrieve and return atop the Peace of Africa, which is anchored about 10 miles off the coast. The waste water and minerals are automatically pumped to the side of the ship and eventually resettles on the bottom. The dolphins don’t seem to mind the brown cloud this creates, as a group of about half a dozen was hanging out by the side of the vessel during this reporter’s visit.
Another impediment to mining is the stormy weather off the coast near the South Africa-Zimbabwe border. Swells sometimes reach 27 meters in height, which shuts down operations as it is too strong for the flexible hoses that connect with the crawler below. Only when waves surpass 14 meters does the mining operation shut down. All of the equipment — the engines, the winches that maneuver the crawler and position the ship over the crawling area, and the machines that pump and sort the materials — run on electricity. The engines run on a fuel oil that is slightly thicker than diesel, and burn through between 18 and 30 tons of fuel each day. That’s the equivalent of filling up the gas tanks of about 600 cars per day. De Beers has an environmental officer dedicated to studying the ship’s impact on the ocean and air. The engines were tested to meet the government’s requirements for NOx and SOx emissions. While the air quality within the working areas of the ship is not monitored for emissions, an air filtration system cleans the air in the living quarters, according to Steyn. The ship’s crew stays on board the ship for 28 days and then gets 28 days off.
That schedule is just fine with Steyn, who plans to stay on for another two years. She grew up with three older brothers and is used to hanging out with the guys.
WindFarming energy…unbelievable? Believe it
Two days ago we traveled to the Darling Windfarm. Sounds nice and quaint I suppose. It is magnificent. It’s astounding and huge for four fans spinning at a rate of knots to create energy.
Another highlight (yes there were many) of yesterdays Cape Town trip was this Windfarm. It’s called a wind farm I can […]
