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23 February 2010 00:02

Harness the wind and the sun

They’re not cost efficient yet, but huge benefits kick in as oil runs out.

JOHANNESBURG - Trillions of dollars are at stake in the great divide over global warming - and it is hard to winkle out the truth between vested interests.

This scribe has had his ear bashed on the one side by Andrew Kenny, SA's most prominent denialist, and on the other, this week by Eddie O'Connor, chairman of the Irish multinational windfarm company, Mainstream.

In recent weeks Moneyweb published that, according to Mainstream's research, SA is ideal for wind power. It has established that we could generate 70% of Eskom's current output from this eco-friendly energy source - at a reasonable premium to current costs.

We have also published that Mainstream is ready willing and able to ...

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Boardroom Talk: Alec Hogg

Letters from Zimbabwe

The sum of all things

Tidemarks

Wealth Building

08 February 2010 21:57

Stuff to love and hate

Most of the things we buy are good but garbage abounds.

JOHANNESBURG - This was going to be a diatribe by a grumpy old man against products and services of poor quality - but ends up a song of praise.

What Adam Smith said is true: to survive in business, you must make an excellent product or service or die. (He actually said that if a man makes a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to his door. Strange that. No one has improved on the old snapping neck breaker of his day.)

I was about to sound off against Lion matches and torches made in China that are good for only one set of batteries. But the list of bad stuff was quite short.

Surrounded by so many goods and services that I simply love, I found it quite hard to draw up a list of things to berate. We will get to those - but doncha just love your Weber braai?...

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02 February 2010 23:52

TV, invention of the devil

Why ever did we let it in?

JOHANNESBURG - Albert Hertzog, the National Party minister of posts and telecommunications, who kept TV out of SA until 1974, was quite right.

It is the invention of the devil and we should never have adopted it when we were the only country in the world without it back in the early 1970s.

Those were the days. We had dinner parties twice a week and the conversation was lively, if not elevated. We played Dylan, Beatles and the Stones on our proudest possession, a B&O hi-fi with a tangential-arm turntable. We had so many friends. When not entertaining, we read books even at night and then snuck off to satin sheets.

Then on Saturdays we either entered a fun run, played hectic tennis or went windsurfing. We played "lion" with the kids, hiding in a cupboard...

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