The by now legendary corruption of the ANC coupled with its obsession with Marxist economics and class warfare has undoubtedly been a huge factor in the collapse of South Africa’s electrical grid, but the influence of the “green energy” lobby has a sorry role to play as well.

South Africa’s unwillingness to maintain, much less upgrade, existing electrical generating capacity has much to do with the idiotic belief that green energy can seamlessly replace it. But reality says otherwise.

The New York Times reports on March 14, 2023 that over the past decade plus, since the wind/solar fad took hold, the country’s coal power plants have been allowed to become “dilapidated” due to poor maintenance and disinvestment. Meanwhile, the focus going back as far as the turn of the century has moved to developing wind and solar resources to provide electricity.

Yes, after all of that effort, the wind generation is up to a full 2% of South Africa’s electricity, and solar 1%.

In a move which can best be described as channeling Salvador Allende, the government of Chile will leave no stone unturned in its quest to turn a growth industry into a decrepit organ of the state.

The shock move in the country with the world’s largest lithium reserves would in time transfer control of Chile’s vast lithium operations from industry giants SQM and Albemarle to a separate state-owned company.

As is usually the case, central planners are late to the party:

The announcement by Chile did not trigger a reversal in lithium prices which as we noted previously, have plunged more than 70% from a November peak due to weakening EV demand in China, the world’s biggest auto market. The most-traded lithium carbonate futures on the Wuxi Stainless Steel Exchange in China fell 3.4%.