When knowledge disappears
IT'S SPOOKY when a civilisation loses information in large quantities. In South America and various other places, great pyramids overgrown by jungle mark the site of civilisations that rose and flourished, mapped the heavens, explored the mysteries of science, then subsided into primitiveness.
Something of the sort seems to be happening here. Yesterday on this very page my old pal Max du Preez, the Pale Native, wrote a brilliantly argued piece for renewable energy as an alternative to nuclear (and, by implication, coal-fired) energy.
I particularly liked this paragraph: "This is a moment of rare opportunity. Mobilise all the scientists, engineers and inventors in the private sector and at universities and develop technologies in the renewable energy field that will make us the envy of the world."
I've good news for Max. Much of that work has already been done. From 1947 until the late 1980s a team of scientists and planners worked on development of the Tugela Basin, a unique geological feature of KwaZulu-Natal that, they calculated, could provide the hydro-electric energy to sustain several cities the size of Johannesburg and leave enough water flowing into the sea to power a city the size of Greater London.
The trick is that the Tugela Basin tilts in such a way that the water can easily be made to gravitate backwards toward the Drakensberg; it can be made to flow about more or less in perpetuity, driving all kinds of turbines..
People spent their careers working on the plan. PhDs were earned. The economics of it, the agricultural spin-offs, the environmental impacts have all been minutely studied.
The Department of Water Affairs identified something like 26 hydro-electric sites on the Tugela and its tributaries. It planned longer-term for water to be transferred to the Tugela Basin from the Transkei, a massive canalisation project that would have provided employment for decades.
But when you asked officials in Pretoria why nothing was happening, their eyes would glaze over and they would mumble about "priorities". In a nutshell, the Nats were not going to develop a province that voted against them or a pesky homeland that refused to accept "independence."
The scientific information is all there in a magnificent document, "Towards a Plan for the Tugela Basin", by Eric Thorrington-Smith, of the Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission, in which he pulled together all the studies. Clearly, the Tugela Basin could supply a large portion of South Africa's energy needs, replacing the nuclear and coal-fired options.
The Nats are history. The newcomers appear not to know about this undeveloped powerhouse.
Yes, it's spooky how information can simply disappear. It's not just the Mayans and the Aztecs.
Soccer jersey
LONDON is where it's all happening, investment analyst Dr James Greener tells us in his latest grumpy newsletter.
"The national soccer team's new jersey (designed in Germany, made in China?) is to be launched at 'a glittering ceremony in London'. How odd."
C'mon, Doc. You must have heard of globalisation.
New crisis
MORE news from the turbulent Middle East A crisis has erupted after Dubai Television was refused permission to broadcast The Flintstones.
A spokesman for the series said: "A claim was made that people in Dubai would not understand the humour, but we know for a fact that people in Abu Dhabi do."
The big numbers
A READER sends in a reminder of what the big numbers, that are so readily spouted, really mean:
· A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
· A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
· A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the stone age.
· A billion days ago nothing walked on the earth on two feet.
· A billion rands ago was only 27 hours and 12 minutes back from now, at the rate our government is spending.
Tailpiece
PADDY is in New York. He's patiently waiting and watching the traffic cop at a busy street crossing. The cop stops the flow of traffic and shouts: "Okay, pedestrians!" Then he allows the traffic to pass again.
He's done this several times, and Paddy is still standing on the sidewalk. After the cop shouts "Pedestrians!" for the tenth time, Paddy crosses to him and says: "Is it not about time ye let the
Catholics across?"
Last word
No man ever listened himself out of a job.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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