Peta Thornycroft, a Zimbabwe correspondent to ABC NEWS, reports from Johannesburg on how to deal with power cuts... What an incredible fuss we make about a few power cuts, he says. I happened to lie down next to my battery-operated satellite radio for a nap this week after the season's only two hours of summer whacked me out. I heard the likeable David O'Sullivan sounding unlikeable. Okay. He was in a rage, so angry he sounded as though he might burst an artery, or the membrane holding his brain in place. Generators fart rhythmically through long days and dark nights. I couldn't believe my ears. As far as I can remember, in this past week there were only about six cuts and none longer than five hours. Same thing at the pharmacy: moan, moan, moan. Then it struck me - for the first time in my life I had really useful knowledge. I do know about electricity cuts and what to do about them. I know about boilers, paraffin fridges, wicks and lighting the lamps by pumping them hard at 5.30pm. Please, African householders, unless you live on more than an acre, don't get a generator. 'First rule for survival: get a solar panel'. Get a solar panel on the roof, which is connected to an especially large car battery in your house, which is then attached to an inverter, which in turn has a switch that lights up the world. This system keeps a TV, DSTV encoder, DVD player, mobile and laptop chargers going. And it costs nothing to run. The bigger the battery, the more lights you get. Ditch desktop computers, fridges and electric stoves including any other equipment that requires too much power. Next, go for gas. Mozambique has 300 years of gas, and the ANC government - even though it chose to do the arms deal instead of electricity - did put in a pipeline for gas from Mozambique. If you have, then get connected. Gas geysers also work at a fraction of the cost of electricity if you don't go for solar-heated water. Refrigerators are another thing altogether. If you keep the doors shut, a tall one will keep food from going off during a power cut of about 30 hours. A deep freeze lasts about 2.5 days if you don't open it. Longer than that and the food goes off. After all, you can shop anywhere. Most Zimbabwe-owned supermarkets shut down during power cuts. Only foreign-connected ones such as Spar have generators, or those owned by Zanu-PF chefs (political elite), as they get cheap fuel. You must conserve power. You have a chance to do this because you still do have commerce and industry. We lost our industry over the past few years, so that sector can't really help much. We have more or less given up mining. Except! And think about this: your mining houses can buy power with foreign currency directly from Cahora Bassa and pay in US dollars, as they are doing in Zimbabwe now. It is a bit more expensive than Eskom, but it keeps the platinum pouring out. We also don't have any robots left in our streets, and little traffic, so we don't have the kind of traffic jams I saw along Jan Smuts Avenue in Jo'burg during a power cut. We don't kill each other in fuel queues, and we don't have road rage as our roads are mostly gone. Nor do we kill each other in banks, even when there is no money there, or in supermarkets. Well, only very, very occasionally, and only once, over sugar and that was in Bulawayo, which is very far from town. So bear up, improvise and go get the solar, inverter, battery alternatives, and gas. And you will all survive until you have enough new power sources within a few years. SOURCE: ABC NEWS