Sadly if you are using renewables you do require back up when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow ..
By all means have the base load fossil fuelled and top up with renewables but not the other way round as we are doing in UK .
The only way wind is 'economic' , Coldhouse43, is because of the hidden subsidy made by us all in inflated electricity bills .This is some 15% at present but just watch it rise if we go for the crazy zero emissions by 2050 policy.

We are being used to provide a good easy living for big landowners like Prince Charles and Sam Cam's dad who have extensive wind farms .

I too dream of clean power stations and minimal pollutants but CO2 is a life giving essential trace gas that has pushed the Sahel belt 50 or so miles north in Africa and given a 15% crop yield increase world wide with an increase of 380ppm to 410ppm .

The world wants more CO2 not less .
Yet the alarmists refuse to say what level they want .!

I give up when I listen to or watch the BBC pushing out one sided propaganda designed to make us accept a UN dominated economy intent on passing wealth from us to poorer countries of their choice

This is not Science it is straightforward power politics which we will all pay for .

When this technology is ready it will sell itself without any need for subsidy ._In the meantime there is a solution to turn round the lives of millions of Africans if they want to do this and we let them ._However China is already investing in this area with plenty of strings attached for Africa all supported by coal fired power stations in China itself.__Repeal the Climate Change Act and let's behave rationally .

Thank you .
Very interesting points . I am not up to date on RSA but see the dreadful results of a kleptocracy at work in my sister's Zimbabwe.
There have been plenty of 5-6 day electricity blackouts there .
It could be that in RSA you are lucky to have a rather more dependable supply - at least for now !

As someone who has worked in the private sector in Africa and also taught at the Nigerian Staff College over some 10 years I can say that your thinking is vague and imprecise .__Grid Electricity ._The provision of grid electricity is the single greatest way of bringing much of Africa out of poverty ._In Uganda for example 31 million do not have this service nor are we providing it ._We [DFID ] insist on providing only renewables with an intermittent supply ._We developed our economy on the back of locally produced raw material , mostly coal, yet deny Africa a similar opportunity .Africa has plentiful resources to realise this aspiration.__Climate Change _Our policy is dictated by the ridiculous Climate Change Act ._'The Science is settled ' no further argument ._The trouble is that the real science is far from settled - numerous questions are not allowed let alone answered ._I have many ._Repeal the Act .__The Great Contraceptive ._Look at the birth stats and you will see that all developed wealthy nations including China with cheap grid electricity are looking at declining populations .Their birth rates fall as prosperity increases .._Those worried about an Africa population explosion have the answer - provide cheap grid electricity ._My Chairman in a big African parastatal had 10 wives and 50 children . Why? They were his future pension support.__Emigration ._Educated Africans without any prospects in their own countries will try to move abroad where opportunities are greater thereby adding to our problems .

Graft and Corruption
Yes these factors can and do disrupt most African countries .But support their own efforts to become wealthy and they will become less significant - as in most wealthy countries .

Competence and Opportunity
Africans I have had contact with in Africa do not lack competence .
Lowly farmers can make a success of their few acres . But they all require a market to sell their products to earn cash for medicines , school fees and consumer products otherwise they are subsistence only ..
We deny them markets eg yes ,we'll buy your coffee beans but no, you cannot add value and send us roasted beans or ground coffee .
So please give them opportunities .

Sadly there is zero chance of sensible policies like these being adopted due to the Climate Change obsession .
The Government prefer to go along with policies that make the likelihood of Climate Change Refugees ever more certain , but not in the way they anticipate .

''Better to spend overseas aid …………….on carbon neutral measures''
Please 'no'
There is not enough grid electricity in much of Africa to lift them out of poverty .
Uganda for example has 31 million people without electricity.
No wonder they wish to develop their own fossil fuels to give them a chance to break out of poverty.
We in our selfish virtuous impractical and cruel way deny them any help in achieving a better future by insisting on wind and solar instead .
'Christian ' Aid is a misnomer .
Is it any wonder that so many sub Saharan Africans make the difficult and dangerous journey to Europe ?
Yes they are true Climate refugees but not in the way ER or Boris classify them .

Agreed !

Absolutely right !
There are no statistics or facts to show we are in any sort of climate emergency .

If they can be produced I shall be the first to acknowledge a new situation

But there has been
A 1degree centigrade temperature increase since pre-industrial times
B no warming for 20 years
C CO2 just 0.04% of the atmosphere - highly significant trace gas that enables the world to grow more
D we need more CO2 ,not less
E Water vapour , clouds far more significant warming/cooling mechanism than CO2

What do they teach these kids nowadays ?
Left liberal dogma dressed up as 'science' without any supporting facts .

Excellent MOK .
Could not agree more .

There is no need to wonder if BJ intends to implement the WA less the backstop .
He hasn't just said so in a speech with get out clauses .
He has laid it all out in his letter to Donald Tusk .
'You give up the backstop and I'll give you everything else.'
I cannot see any other interpretation .
I sense it is all now fixed with the EU giving way on 17/18 Oct and the WA rammed through with threats by 31 Oct 19
I cannot see the EU turning down such a good deal and so keeping us in their orbit .
They want to see an end to Brexit and if the do with our connivance then I for one will be off to TBP.

The worrying part of this saga is Boris' letter to Donald Tusk a week or so ago .
He offered vast concessions to the EU in writing viz
- a continuing role for EU judges
- a lop-sided arbitration mechanism
- a £39 billion payment which no international tribunal would up hold
- two years of non-voting but paying membership
- plus the rest of the May WA including the European Army , defence agreements and an inability to
conclude our own trade deals

All for EU willingness to delete the backstop
Since we have no interest in setting up a hard border and neither do the EU or Leo V then it would seem that they will snap our hand off to the bitter disappointment of myself and many many others who would think this BRINO !