Basslink is a proposed under-sea cable for electric power, between Victoria and Tasmania.

I foresee two inevitable outcomes if this goes ahead.

1. Tasmanians will pay a hell of a lot more for power.

2. The Franklin River will be dammed.

In this era of reducing global CO2 emissions, mainland Australia are under pressure to scrap their coal-fired power stations. Therefore a cable to Tasmania (which is Hydro Electric) is a great idea, for them. The only trouble is we don't have all that much power to spare - it depends on annual rainfall to fill our lakes. Some years this doesn't happen, despite cloud seeding, and Tasmania is forced to fire up its own thermal power station - specially built for such an occasion.

And it is a well known fact that places like Sydney and Melbourne are economically much better off than Tasmania. Therefore they are in a position to offer to pay more for 'clean' power from Tasmania. So the HEC will either say to Tasmanians, "you have to pay more or we can get a better price on the mainland," or we are likely to face power cuts because they will sell power to the highest bidder.

The other obvious outcome is that power will become a good export commodity for Tasmania, like wood chips. If a little bit of wood chipping is good, then more wood chipping is better. So it will be with power. Where do we get more power?