Reason #5: Why I Love To Blog -- Back To South Africa; Apple: Another Game Changer -- August 30, 2015

This is so incredibly cool. On August 21, 2015, I posted a "completely unnecessary post" but I learned a lot in the process. I had no idea that little bit of trivia would show up on the radar scope so soon.

This is the bit of trivia from the "completely unnecessary post":

VTTI started building a new facility in Cape Town in July; South Africa has emerged as an increasingly important way station for oil, with traders able to easily flip bbls east and west from that location depending on regional demand.

Now, Sunday evening, August 30, 2015, this tweet:

South African govt official says country intends to import LNG from Iran and resume purchase of crude oil for its new refineries, IRNA reports.

IRNA is the official news agency of Iran.

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Fortunately CO2 Does Not Cross International Boundaries

I Wonder If Governor Dayton Would Dare Call South Africans Neanderthals?

AFP is reporting:

President Jacob Zuma inaugurated on Sunday the first unit of a massive new coal-fired power plant in South Africa, hailing it as a step away from the country's energy woes.

The Medupi power station, situated north of Johannesburg, is to produce 4,800 megawatts of electricity by 2019, when it is expected to be operating at full capacity.

South Africa has suffered through rolling blackouts, known as load shedding, as the state-owned utility Eskom has sought to ease pressure on its stable of ageing and poorly-maintained power stations.

South Africa last new gas-fired power plant opened in 2013, while a new coal-burning plant has not come online since 1996. 

The new plant's first unit began operating in March and its 749 megawatts of electricity should help ease the stress on the country's troubled electrical grid.

Another coal-fired plant is under construction in Kusile, east of Johannesburg, and it is expected to pump out a flow of electricity similar to Medupi, but that project has also been hampered by major delays. 

If it ever gets up to capacity (4,800 MW), this new power plant will be among the top ten (maybe the top five) largest coal plants in the world. China has one 5,000 MW coal plant.  Unless I missed it, the US has no coal plants that size. And, yes, South Africa was one of the first countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

I think the big story here is not what is going on in South Africa, but think about this: the population of South Africa is around 50 million. India: 1.3 billion. 

50 million / 1,300,000,000 = 4%.  

Talk about all the intermittent energy (wind and solar) that you want, but at the end of the day, it's going to be King Coal for India, China, and probably most of the entire sub-Saharan African continent. 

Fortunately:

• President Obama's term ends in less than two years; and, 
• CO2 does not cross international boundaries.

 Meanwhile, the EPA is going after methane leakage in the natural gas industry.

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Ad Blocking

On small screens on mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, there's not a lot of room. Ads can take up a lot of that real estate.

In addition, fancy, colorful, video ads can slow the re-fresh rate.

All-in-all, most folks probably don't care for ads on their smart phone or their tablets. Wouldn't it be great to download an app that eliminate those ads?

Well, it's coming, and it's coming from Apple. Since Apple relies on little to no advertising revenue, unlike Google that depends on advertising revenue, this is huge.

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Ad blockers have long been available for Web browsers on personal computers, and have attracted a small but loyal following. Users can surf the Web without seeing banner ads, advertised links on search results or commercials before online videos. Apple permits ad blockers on its Safari browser for PCs.

About 6% of global Internet users employ ad blockers, according to an August report by PageFair and Adobe Systems Inc. That report said 198 million users ran ad blockers in June 2015, up 40% from a year earlier. Wells Fargo analyst Peter Stabler estimates that ad blockers will reduce spending on Internet ads by $12.5 billion world-wide in 2016.

“The ad-blocking problem is real and growing, and ad-blocking on iOS is only going to accelerate it,” said Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, an association of digital publishers.

Apple isn’t powering the ad-blocking software itself. Instead, it is allowing outside developers to write programs to work with the browser in its iOS 9. That means users must find an ad-blocking app and install it, an extra step that may deter some people. 

Let the fun begin.

Apple doesn't refer to this ad "ad blocking," but rather as "content blocking." Whatever.