EE-News
News and announcements from EE PublishersIssue 265, May 2014
EE-News masthead
 
Views and Opinion
Priorities for our new minister of energy...
by Prof. Anton Eberhard, National Planning Commissioner, and head of the UCT Graduate School of Business

Tina Joemat-Pettersson faces a daunting task as South Africa's new energy minister. She will be the seventh energy minister since the advent of democracy in 1994 (on average, ministers have occupied the position for less than three years). None have truly put their stamp on the sector and the challenges the new minister faces are arguably the most serious in 20 years.
 
  
Prof. Anton Eberhard
Gone are the years of cheap and reliable electricity. Today it seems inconceivable that Eskom was once voted a leading brand. Now the minister has to provide leadership in resolving one of South Africa's core economic challenges: providing enough electricity to power growth and employment. She will have to take a position on funding for Eskom, electricity prices, securing coal supplies, procurement of Independent Power Producers, investment in gas for power, cross-border hydro-electricity deals, more renewable energy and whether the country can afford to contract nuclear power.

Eskom has not built enough new generation capacity to support economic growth. Today power demand is lower than it was in 2007. This is unprecedented in the history of electricity supply in South Africa. Obviously the fall-out of the economic crisis of 2008 played its part. Electricity prices have also trebled over the past seven years and consumers are saving electricity. Investments are being made in energy efficiency. Structural change in the economy, with the growth of services and the shrinkage of the primary and secondary sectors, also means less energy is required per unit of GDP output. But these factors combined do not adequately explain seven years of stagnant electricity sales. We have to face the fact that Eskom has simply not been able to sign up large new electricity consumers. And international companies know that; they have shifted their investments off-shore to more secure locations.

Eskom's Medupi, Kusile and Ingula power stations are more than three years late. They will not make a difference to the electricity supply-demand balance for years to come. Minister Joemat-Pettersson's first priority is thus to restore electricity supply security in South Africa... (more)

Please click here to provide your comments and feedback using the comment facility provided at the bottom of the article, or email your comments to Roger Lilley, editor of Energize, [email protected].
 
 
Invitation: Colloquium
The incredible story of optical recording discs
 
The University of Johannesburg Centre for Telecommunications, the IEEE South Africa Section Information Theory Society and EE Publishers cordially invite you to a colloquium, with presentations by the pioneer of the compact disc, Prof. Kees A. Schouhamer Immink of Turing Machines Inc, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

DATE: Friday 6 June 2014
TIME: 13h00 to 16h00
VENUE: University of Johannesburg, Bunting Road Campus, School of Tourism and Hospitality, Kerzner Building (see map here)
COST: Free-of-charge

REGISTRATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION

To RSVP, register to attend, or request further information, please contact: Wendy Smith, University of Johannesburg, Tel: 011 559-4743, Email [email protected] or [email protected]

PROGRAMME (click the links below for presentation synopses)

13h00 - 14h00: Lunch
14h00 - 14h45: The incredible story of optical recording discs
14h45 - 15h15: Short break
15h15 - 16h00: How to deal with channels with unknown gain and offset

BRIEF CV OF PRESENTER

Dr. Kees Schouhamer Immink is an adjunct professor at the Institute for Experimental Mathematics, University of Essen, Germany, and president and founder of Turing Machines Inc., a Dutch-based research and consulting firm that monitors global trends in science and technology.

For more than three decades, Prof. Immink has played a central role in the research and development of digital recording sytems and products, including coding technology, electronics, servo design and performance, playing behavior, system control and protection. He has been instrumental in the design and development of a wide variety of digital consumer-type video, audio, and data recorders such as LaserVision videodisc, Compact Disc (CD), CD-ROM, Compact Disc Video (CD-V), R-DAT, Video CD, Digital Compact Cassette (DCC), Digital Video Recorder (DV), DVD, Super Audio CD (SACD), DVD-Audio, and BluRay Disc. His research has resulted in four books, more than 100 articles, and over 1000 foreign patents.

Prof. Immink received several tributes that summarize the impact of his contributions to the digital audio and video revolution. Among the accolades received are the Edison Medal for a career of creative contributions to the technologies of digital video, audio and data recording, and an individual Technology Emmy award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS). Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands bestowed on him a knighthood in 2000.

 

GIBB
In this issue...
Opinion: Priorities for our new minister of energy
Colloquium: The incredible story of optical recording discs
 
Your free e-Zines
  
(Tablet and PC editions)

 
(Tablet and PC editions)
  
  
(Tablet and PC editions)


(Tablet and PC edition)
Postionit_apr-may14_e-zine_flip.gif