Consider the dire state of our island home's electricity production - dam levels hovering at 14 per cent and a failed Bass Strait cable - and then predict a time when every Tasmanian is responsible for heating one's own home and boiling the kettle ... by riding a bicycle with its back wheel hitched to the grid.

A time when, on passing a neighbour's open window, the diligent eavesdropper may well overhear the desperate plea: "Pedal faster Brian or we'll miss the end of Midsomer Murders."

Such musings were generated (!) while your correspondent was forced to drive slowly behind 20 single-line cyclists on Evandale Rd last weekend.

It led this writer to consider weekend velocipede riders' appalling waste of useful energy when they would be so much better employed fulfilling the state's power needs by remaining stationary at home lashed to a dynamo and feeding their sweating endeavours into the grid.

We take on board state Resources Minister Paul Harriss' stop-gap, nay desperate, concept of keeping our homes electrified by burning wood off-cuts yet forecast the usual banner-waving "hello earth, hello trees" suspects will halt that vision in its tracks.

Even when environmentally-aware types are told that combusting huon pine will yield a pleasant neighbourhood wood-smoke fragrance.

Your columnist now concedes that other mooted far-sighted concepts, including solar-panelled hats (worn at a rakish angle and pointing north) may be impractical.

Meanwhile, back at other viable power sources, the main thrust was Energy Minister Matthew Groom's decision last week to augment the state's power supply by importing diesel generators providing 60MW to help secure the state's power supply.

Especially now that we are told, horror of horrors, the Tamar Valley power station's 58MW gas turbine is in Abu Dhabi for repairs.

While "Abu Dhabi, how did it get there?" would be the gentle reader's correct response, we hope authorities vacuum the sand out of the beast after it's shipped home.

And so we are left with the thought of these lycra-clad lads on Evandale Rd and pondering how much better use these cyclists would be off the tarmac and tied to a generator before tapping into the state grid.

And thus encouraging other Tasmanians to get on their bikes.

Mr Harriss must unleash an Energy Plan B calling for the import of around 100,000 bikes so that we islanders may generate our own power and feed it into the system.

For not only would we then achieve power independence but also do something towards curbing the state's growing (in every sense of the word) obesity epidemic.

It is all very well for state Health Minister Michael Ferguson to pledge a "five-year strategic plan" to deal with the state's 65 per cent adult obesity rate - higher than the Australian average - but there has been no constructive idea yet of how this will be achieved.

Bicycles are the answer.

A time will come when every citizen will be responsible for his, or her, own electricity generation.

When the hydro and coal-powered grid will only be available for major industry.

That is if there are any smokestack factories left should Greensters realise their dream of returning to a Stone Age way of life.

Oh yes, and let's factor in those plastic armbands worn by trendy and athletic persons to record their daily step-rate.

The competitively-inclined would soon be vying to see how much power they produce.

"I've been lighting up the whole of Lonnie," will become the sweating braggart's cry after a glance at the strap.

No back-pedalling on this one, Mr Harriss.