Switch now or wait and see?

British Gas has become the first large energy supplier to break ranks and cut prices, taking 10pc off its standard gas tariff.

The cut will come into effect on February 19 and means that the average British Gas dual fuel bill will drop from £1,328 to £1,240, a saving of £88 a year.

However, experts said the cut nowhere near made up for recent rises in the cost of gas. British Gas increased its prices by 46pc in 2008. Some also advised consumers to wait and see whether other energy providers dropped their prices before switching to a cheaper tariff. It is expected that other providers are likely to announce similar cuts.

"Now that Britain’s biggest supplier has made the move, other suppliers will be under pressure to follow suit. We are sure to see a flurry of pricing announcements," said Ann Robinson, head of consumer policy at financial comparison site uSwitch.

However, she added that the cuts were likely to be "too little, and too late" to help consumers with this winter’s fuel bills.

The British Gas cut means that its WebSaver tariff, which is guaranteed to be 10pc below its ordinary tariff, will be the cheapest option for many customers across the country.

Gareth Kloet, head of utilities at website Confused.com, advised customers to switch now, despite the expected price cuts. "We’ve waited too long for cuts," he said. "We’ve seen suppliers tinkering with tariffs, but this is really good news for customers."

His company provided the table (right, click to enlarge) of the best deals in each area of the country.

Watchdog Consumer Focus welcomed the price cut, saying British Gas had "done the right thing". "We will now turn the heat up on the other five companies that are keeping prices sky high," said chief executive Ed Mayo.

Meanwhile, Age Concern said that, unless there were further price cuts from all suppliers, "many of the poorest pensioners will continue struggle to pay their energy bills".

A spokesman for British Gas said: "Wholesale prices have come down enough for us to begin lowering prices for our customers. We'll continue to watch wholesale prices carefully and if they go down again significantly we will pass this on to our customers."

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British Gas is cutting its gas prices by 10%

British Gas said today it would cut residential gas prices by 10% next month, sparking hopes that the move will put pressure on other suppliers to follow suit.

The company, the biggest gas supplier to the UK residential market, said the move would benefit 7.5m households and save £84 on average household gas bills. The cut will not affect customers on fixed-rate deals or those who only buy electricity from British Gas.

Though some observers described the move as a welcome first step, there was disappointment the company had not gone further in reversing last summer's 35% rise in gas bills, which itself followed a 15% increase last January.

Phil Bentley, British Gas managing director, said wholesale gas prices had almost doubled last year and the market had been very volatile. "We buy gas months before it is used so we can make sure we always have enough for our customers, and can protect them from sudden rises in wholesale prices," he said.

Bentley said the company understood that energy bills represented a "significant cost" for customers. "This price cut will go some way towards helping customers manage their budgets and we will continue to do for them what we can, when we can."

British Gas rejected suggestions from some of the company's competitors that the price cut simply represented a "catch-up" move. It said British Gas had not cut electricity prices because wholesale prices had fallen more slowly and it had increased electricity bills by less than gas prices last year.

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Biofuel Carbon Footprint Not As Big As Feared

Publications ranging from the journal Science to Time magazine have blasted biofuels for significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, calling into question the environmental benefits of making fuel from plant material. But a new analysis by Michigan State University scientists says these dire predictions are based on a set of assumptions that may not be correct.
"Greenhouse gas release from changes in land use – growing crops that could be used for biofuels on previously unfarmed land – has been identified as a negative contributor to the environmental profile of biofuels," said Bruce Dale, MSU University Distinguished Professor of chemical engineering and materials science. "Other analyses have estimated that it would take from 100 to 1,000 years before biofuels could overcome this 'carbon debt' and start providing greenhouse gas benefits."

But as Dale and his co-authors point out in their research, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, earlier analyses didn't consider a number of variables that might influence the greenhouse gas emissions associated with biofuels.

"Our analysis shows that crop management is a key factor in estimating greenhouse gas emissions associated with land use change associated with biofuels," Dale said. "Sustainable management practices, such as no-till farming and planting cover crops, can reduce the time it takes for biofuels to overcome the carbon debt to three years for grassland conversion and 14 years for temperate zone forest conversion."

The discrepancies between the time it will take biofuels to offer environmental benefits is due to the models used for each analysis, Dale explained.

"There are no real data on what actually happens as demand increases for land for biofuel production in one part of the world potentially leads to land clearing, because it is impossible to track these relationships in the real world," Dale said. "All the estimates are based on economic relationships and theoretical models with various data and assumptions. It's really one set of assumptions versus another set. The other scientists believe their assumptions are more reasonable, and we believe ours are more reasonable.

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World’s first flying car prepares for take-off

Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it’s both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month.

If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time.

Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage.

Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said: “This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.”

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air.

Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph.

Dietrich said he had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000).

“For an airplane that’s very reasonable, but for a car that’s very much at the high end,” he conceded.

There are still one or two drawbacks. Getting insurance may be a little tricky and finding somewhere to take off may not be straightforward: the only place in the US in which it is legal to take off from a road is Alaska.

Dietrich is optimistic. He said: “In the long term we have the potential to make air travel practical for individuals at a price that would meet or beat driving, with huge time savings.”

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