Anyway, there are some changes coming shortly to www.danlewis.org because looking at it now, I realise quite a lot of it is out of date and I’m missing a large number of articles that I have written in the recent and distant past.

In the meantime, here is an interview I did at 3 in the morning a few days ago on American Conservative Radio with John Terry - about 40 minutes and despite the early hours, I really enjoyed it.  Both my hosts were very easy to talk to – real pros – and we covered the Euro crisis, shale gas, energy security and renewable costs.

It’s a shame we don’t really have talk radio in Britain – over here it’s all about soundbites, quick questions and answers and then it’s over in 3-4 minutes. So it was doubly nice not to be interrupted, be given time to make a point and think of something else on the hoof to say !

Thanks again to American Conservative Nation for inviting me on to their show.

Starting with yesterday’s discovery of shale gas near Blackpool by Cuadrilla Resources – the best news that town has had in a long time.

Then there’s the ongoing cold snap in the UK combined with a long acknowledge inadequate storage capability. As I wrote a year ago in Securing Our Energy Future Chapter 3: Don’t Bet on Gas – The UK Way, our storage capacity then stood at 4.34 billion cubic metres (bcm) when OFGEM recommended in 2004 that it should be 10 bcm in 2009. No suprise then that The Sunday Times reported on the 5th December that in this exceptionally long period of cold weather so early in the winter, gas storage levels have been depleted (to 75% rather than a more typical 97% for this time of year), big industrial users were almost forced to shut down,  spot prices are rocketing  and the consumer is beginning to to pay – big time.

So it speaks volumes about the government lack of energy policy prioritisation that they are so disinterested in Scottish & Southern Electricity’s plans to defer investment in gas storage a month ago because of regulatory uncertainty but very excited about CCS and a shiny new Green Investment Bank. Price stability will only come with long-term contracts and adequate storage which we manifestly do not have.

For all that, it’s good news to hear that the Gateway storage scheme received a sizeable investment from Petrofac as this is a project that could significantly boost UK storage, by up to 1.5 bcm. Although that will still be way short of what we really need to be secure – about another 4 bcm.

I have to say, they look pretty generous to me. I’m going to do some back of the envelope calculations and come back with a new table that shows the yield per technology. As I wrote recently in Utility Week, if we really do get a boom in micro-generation from the 1st April when they come into force, this will not be without problems.

The Global State of Carbon Capture and Storage 2009

A one-stop report for all you need to know on CCS. What is happening, what are the technologies, what are the problems, where are the opportunities?

Read it at Future Energy Strategies