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Britain is in danger of running out of gas. Yesterday, the National Grid that is responsible for Britain's gas and electricity network, issued an unprecedented warning – called a “gas balancing alert” – warning that there was not enough gas to meet demand. Gas supplies to some businesses might have to be reduced. Not surprisingly, the move sent wholesale prices spiralling up fourfold.

Americans consume approximately one million barrels of oil a day in non-fuel products. As an article in Christian Science Monitor notes: “Look around you. What do you see? A computer screen, the print on this page, a pen, your shirt. Chances are there's petroleum in all of it. Petroleum-based substances are in everything from lipstick to laundry detergents, clothes to computers to chocolate bars - even fertilizers and pharmaceuticals”

Are we witnessing an about-turn in energy thinking in the UK? The Labour government, worried by climate change and energy security, is in the middle of a review on energy that will be published in the summer. All the pundits believe though that the government will commit itself to a new generation of nuclear power plants, based on the existing centralised idea of supplying electricity.

They may be in favour at the White House, but a new report attacks the concept of biofuels being the panacea for either climate change or energy security.

Written by the British-based think tank Science in Society (ISIS), it says that Biofuels have gained prominence from politicians and environmentalists because they are “carbon neutral”, in that they do not add any greenhouse gas into the atmosphere; burning them simply returns to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that the plants take out when they were growing in the field.

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