Still not sure about the first one

SIGH! Here we go again – all the recycled hype about a bigger, better cable across Bass Strait. In carefully guarded language, we read it would enable Tasmania to deliver four times as much energy into the national energy market as coal power stations close down in coming years. While I cannot wait to see the end of these monstrosities, there are no guarantees about when this will happen, or what power generation will replace them.

There is planning for pumped storage for the Snowy Mountains Hydro scheme. This would deliver power over standard transmission lines, much less costly than submarine DC cable plus its ac/dc converter stations, and the scheme is closer to where it’s needed. The statements about increased internet capacity seem to imply the internet capacity is an integral part. It’s a completely different thing, it is a different cable laid by the same ship as a matter of economics.

I haven’t noticed my electricity bill coming down since the existing Bass Strait cable, and I suspect that, if its billion or so cost had been put into enhancing Tasmania’s generating capacity and our storages allowed to build to a reasonable level, we would have been better off. I would like to see a clearly stated cost/benefit summary of the existing cable, including the cost of its two breakdowns, the first, and worst, of which I believe was, maybe still is, the subject of legal wrangling. David Clark Sandy Bay