Over the weekend encouraging news emerged from the South African department of energy regarding increasing investment in renewable energy projects spanning wind, solar and photovoltaic. Better late than never.

One hopes that these projects will have an accelerated time-frame so that they can sooner contribute to the energy shortfall and reduce the country’s climate impact.

There seems also to be a firm resolve to forge ahead with fracking in the Karoo and with the massive nuclear build programme. As much as I think both have merit, I hope the decisions to move forward in both cases are based on solid research and that the cost-benefit analyses are sound. The country can ill afford any mucking around.