Some may know that I trade as an acoustics engineer, not a ‘sound engineer’. As I recently reminded an attorney – the ‘sound engineer’ chews gum, has piercings and tattoos, wears dark glasses at... 

Back in the day, consulting engineering firms were making money hand over fist. There were no black consulting engineers. Government handed out projects on a rota system. Fees were based on a... 

New people on the block, hoping to make a quick buck, were once named carpetbaggers. The term originated from the carpet bags (a form of cheap luggage made from carpet fabric) which many of these... 

So there’s this film, see? A big mining company wants to dump mine tailings in a river. They’re keeping it all hush hush. But a brave and fearless person manages to find out their devious plan. The... 

Wind turbines do not assist power system operation. They do not. Every so often, a power system collapses and it is the renewable-energy systems which cause the collapse. Wind turbines produce no... 

Large cranes have many moving parts and quite complex systems. In general, travelling cranes supplied over the past 30 years have a driver who sat high up in a cabin. In the cabin are the levers... 

“Okay, children, I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was this place at the mouth of the Orange river, on the border of South Africa. At this place, there were diamonds on the ground,... 

Professor Renfrew Christie wrote a book titled Electricity, Industry and Class in South Africa. This is a highly recommended book, especially for anybody interested in the, um, anthropology of... 

We try to stay away from politics in this column. But. Und zis iz a big ‘but’. 

“Good morning and welcome to Earth. I know it’s been a long trip, but I am sure you are all excited to have finally arrived. I am going to answer some of your questions, some general and some about... 

Dear Sir – I recall that, in 1940, the British Army had been defeated in France by the invading German army. The army retreated to Dunkirk, a French channel port. About 330 000 soldiers were picked... 

Back in the day, as they say, Harden Beck, of the East London municipality, was the chief electrical engineer. I found out that the electrical engineering department of the city received many... 

We were at Richards Bay Minerals, getting a safety briefing. The safety officer explained: “Hey, we’ve got 14 types of snake here. Of these, 12 types are venomous, which is to say, if you get... 

What is a fact is that many people think that being off the grid, independent from Eskom, is very much more desirable than being connected to the grid. What is also a fact is that many people do... 

It is a stock joke: every contestant in the Miss World contest is asked what she hopes for and the answer is, among other answers: “I’d like world peace . . .” It’s easy to mock. Sexism aside,... 

A year ago, our President advised his fallow South Heficans that we would all have to stay at home for a bit. There are a lot of songs with the word ‘home’ in them. There’s Simon and Garfunkel’s... 

The telephone system in this country is currently worse than it was during the time of farm telephone lines. You don’t know what a farm telephone line is? (Or don’t know what a telephone or,... 

Those of you who love karma or schadenfreude (as I do) probably have watched YouTube videos of Somali pirates being shot up by various warships. Schadenfreude is German and it’s made up of the... 

In 1982, I was working for GEC Engineering Services, in Germiston. I reported to Pierre Ballot, who was an incredibly good engineer. My job was to test and commission electrical equipment that had... 

I was on the witness stand as an expert witness. The applicant has submitted an affidavit that a power line conductor broke off and set the veld alight. He claims he has lost hectares of valuable... 

I don’t believe in climate change. I recently mentioned this to a young adult American woman (23 years old). She said, “Uh, huh”, but clearly thought I was wrong. I said to her, look, it’s like... 

You may have seen Bianca Goodson (Smith) on TV or somewhere. She is the former Trillian CEO who testified how the company swindled Eskom and Transnet. As a result of her evidence at the Public... 

‘Dog Mathematics’ is mathematics you could teach a dog to do. The dog may not get it right, depending on the complexity, but it’s all real cute all the same. In 1998, I wrote to Eskom and said... 

In May 1941, the city of London was bombed and the seat of Parliament, the House of Commons, was very badly damaged. When it was being rebuilt, Winston Churchill was asked if the original seating... 

Lemmings do not commit suicide. The little rodents throwing themselves off a cliff is mythical. However, this particular myth is based on actual lemming behaviours. When the concentration of... 

Members of the electrical engineering profession are guilty of disturbing the visual environment. You may not have realised this, but it is so.  We erect power station chimney stacks that give off... 

It was recently reported in this fine newspaper: “In an effort to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa survive the economic crisis, more than 50 large companies have... 

I don’t speak South African languages with any competence. Our President, apart from his pronunciation of the word ‘fellow’, has a good command of the English language and other South African... 

Claude Shannon is virtually unknown, but his work was fundamental in the creation of the digital computer. A law which he was partly responsible for is the Shannon Hartley law of information... 

In my second year at the University of the Witwatersrand, in 1972, (yes, people were alive then and could do sums an’ all) the HP 35 calculator was released onto the market by Hewlett Packard. The... 

In the wonderful musical, Les Misérables, the lead character, Jean Valjean, goes to a hotel to collect the daughter of Fantine. Fantine has been paying a couple who run an inn to look after her... 

There is a film, The Secret of Santa Vittoria.  Santa Vittoria is an Italian town renowned for its vineyards. In the storyline, at some stage the residents realise that the nearby village could... 

Now that it has finally dawned on some of us that cars with batteries require to be charged and that it takes time for this to happen and its not the same time as needed by the driver to have... 

It was reported that, "following months of delay, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe [had] published the Gazette opening the way for the procurement of 4 800 MW of onshore wind, 2... 

When I was 19, I fell in love with a girl who was studying at the University Cape Town (UCT). I was studying at the University of the Witwatersrand at the time and had just finished my second,... 

You’ve heard of a ‘microgrid’? I Googled it and found that: “A microgrid is a miniaturised version of the larger grid, a configuration of energy resources, distribution wires and buildings, all... 

Naked and Afraid is a TV programme which documents American couples who are dropped off at some remote location, clothes removed, and try to survive warm and cold, prepare and eat food, stay... 

Every so often, we (my consulting practice) get an email request to quote on the supply of a service or an item of equipment for which we are agents. These requests vary from a simple email to a... 

An article in Tech Central begins: “What if I told you that our energy crisis could be alleviated with one simple change? Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But, as a professional, with almost a decade... 

Port, sherry, champagne, Melton Mowbray pies, Cornish pasty, Scotch Whiskey, et cetera, are products whose names are protected by international laws. The notional purpose of the laws is to (I... 

I recently wrote about a court case between the National Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) and Eskom, which Eskom won. Nersa is a government body that is supposed to regulate the electricity,... 

My editor has discouraged me from writing about politics in this column, and I think rightly so. My father and my mother were in the Second World War, in uniform, and both had a very healthy...