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this may make international news for south africa - the "europe of africa" - but it's commonplace in uganda. load-shedding? we don't have it for just a few hours in the afternoon, that would be luxury. no, load-shedding in uganda tends to be on a 24-hour-on-24-off cycle. yes, that means for 24 hours you have electricity, then for the next 24 you don't. there's some elaborate schedule for knowing when load-shedding's going to hit your part of town; sometimes the schedule gets printed in the paper and (almost) always it isn't followed.

Six page article from 2003 provides an in depth discussion on existing and Future Nuclear Systems:  "In Response to the difficulties in achieving sustainability, a sufficiently high degree of safety and a competitive economic basis for nuclear power, the U.S. Department of Energy initiated the Generation IV program in 1999. Generation IV refers to the broad division of nuclear designs into four categories: early prototype reactors (Generation I), the large central station nuclear power plants of today (Generation II), the advanced lightwater reactors and other systems with inherent safety features that have been designed in recent years (Generation III), and the next-generation systems to be designed and built two decades from now (Generation IV) [see box on opposite page]. By 2000 international interest in the Generation IV project had resulted in a nine-country coalition that includes Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. Participating states are mapping out and collaborating on the research and development of future nuclear energy systems."

South Africa's power crisis today forced the world's three largest gold mining companies to shut down their operations as the government called the rolling blackouts across the country a "national emergency" and threatened to ration electricity.

South Africa's investment in alternative forms of energy from smaller suppliers and in renewable energy, affected an earlier decision the country made not to invest in mainstream electricity infrastructure.

The South African government has told millions of people left in the dark by rolling power cuts that have swept the country over the past week, and which are likely to go on for years, to look on the bright side. The blackouts are the result of surging demand for power caused by a booming economy, it says. But as the lights go off more frequently and for longer periods, the national mood has darkened.

Technology Review has an article on new fuel cells that don't require platinum - A Catalyst for Cheaper Fuel Cells. A new catalyst based on iron works as well as platinum-based catalysts for accelerating the chemical reactions inside hydrogen fuel cells. The finding could help make fuel cells for electric cars cheaper and more practical. Fuel cell researchers have been looking for cheaper, more abundant alternatives to platinum, which costs between $1,000 and $2,000 an ounce and is mined almost exclusively in just two countries: South Africa and Russia. One promising catalyst that uses far less expensive materials--iron, nitrogen, and carbon--has long been known to promote the necessary reactions, but at rates that are far too slow to be practical.