This time last year, South Africa was in the midst of an energy supply crisis, with rolling blackouts (called ‘loadshedding’) and a completely unreliable electricity grid. Our team at TomorrowToday made a bold prediction: the problem would last just the one winter and then be basically resolved. We said this on the basis of our research into the unbelievably rapid growth of alternative energy sources globally, and especially wind and solar projects coming on stream in South Africa.
Many South Africans scoffed and called us unduly optimistic.
It seems we were right. http://www.fin24.com/…/no-load-shedding-for-the-foreseeable…
And it’s going to just keep getting better and better. Not just in SA, but everywhere.
The bad news in this story is that some of the reason the South African energy crisis has eased is reduced supply due to a drop off in mining activity in the SA economy. The good news is that where we get our electricity from, how we store it and the means of distributing it are all being improved. And will continue to be so over the next few years.
Even better news for everyone globally is that countries around the world are starting to have major success in finding alternative and renewable energy sources. In March 2016, Portugal had four consecutive days of providing 100% of the country’s energy demand from renewable sources, for example. And in May 2016, Germany actually paid electricity consumers to use electricity for a weekend, as they had an oversupply in their grid due to a particularly sunny and windy couple of days. The future of free electricity is already here. In fact, better than that – you might get paid to use it.
Check out http://www.iter.org and http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com for some of the most exciting “miracle energy projects” in the world. Also keep an eye on Elon Musk’s battery factories.
We are rapidly coming to the end of the age of carbon fuels. Within two decades, electricity and alternative energy sources may be so abundant that they will be essentially free. And they’ll be clean and renewable too, helping us combat climate change and become a more sustainable planet.
What a time to be alive.
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