If you could bottle the hot air being generated in the row about gas, even George Osborne would probably admit defeat: the energy-from-waste produced would obviate the need for any other source completely. On Thursday the Committee on Climate Change published a letter to Ed Davey, the Secretary of State at DECC, expressing concern at a statement regarding the role of gas in future energy generation. In particular, it pointed out that there is a statutory requirement to meet carbon targets by 2030. The letter was pointedly copied to the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor himself, who is widely suspected of favouring shifting the goalposts on gas.

A month or so ago this column carried a report on the Renewables Obligation Banding Review, which was somewhat less than enthusiastic about some biomass and biofuels options – in particular where crops are being grown for fuel instead of food. This week no less a body than food giant Nestlé threw its weight behind the argument, warning that US and EU biofuel targets could trigger a world food crisis, cutting production and driving up prices at a time when the US in particular is experiencing its worst drought in decades.

While most of the news stories with the keyword 'chimneys' in recent weeks have concerned the contraptions featured in Danny Boyle's somewhat elegiac Olympic Opening Ceremony, tucked away was a story that illustrates our equivocal view of the environment.

Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge is looking to construct a state-of-the-art energy innovation centre in its grounds, to take its energy production needs into the 21st century and replace the current combined heat and power plant - the NHS's first. To do so it will need to construct three large – that is, very high – chimneys and that is where the good people of Cambridge come up against a paradox. They don't want the chimneys because it will spoil the view.

"The next big step forward for renewables: energy storage!"

So tweeted US legal site J D Supra, leading the reader to a piece detailing a US government agency's 'solicitation' for grants towards developing technologies for storing renewable energy.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is part of the US Department of Energy and is to make $43m available to small businesses to "...fund the development of transformational technologies that reduce the barriers to mass adoption of electrical energy storage for stationary and transportation applications."

The article, by Daniel Freedman of US law firm Tharpe and Howell, goes on to explain: "With respect to stationary applications the ARPA-E solicitation focuses on storage systems to support electric vehicles and consumer meter applications. As for transportation applications, the ARPA-E solicitation focuses on battery chemistries, battery architectures and novel electric storage systems."