Freak weather is also playing its part as droughts in Brazil and Argentina dent electricity output from their hydroelectric plants, forcing both to take up the slack in the gas market.
📈At 164p a therm, gas prices are already around triple the average of the last decade
❓Is the crisis temporary?
Despite the prominent short-term drivers of the current spike, experts say policy decisions have also increased the UK's energy vulnerability.
Andrew Large, chairman of the Energy Intensive Users Group, said the Noughties' "dash for gas" has left the country with few options beyond expensive gas.
🗣️"We've talked for a long time about potential grid instability due to reliance on intermittent renewables"
❓How do we fix it?
In the short-term, experts hope that big producers such as the US and Australia will respond by pumping more gas.
"The question is whether the increase in production capacity can catch up with rising global demand levels," analyst Tim Dixon says
💡Dixon says: "The fundamentals are ensuring that we have enough electrons under all conceivable sets of circumstances in order to be able to keep the lights on at reasonable prices. That therefore means gas storage, it means diversification of supply, it means greater autarky."
🔴The British Retail Consortium, which represents the major chains, said it expected to see food shortages by the end of the week
Pork suppliers have warned of "farmageddon" within 10 days.
🐷Pig farmers have threatened to slaughter animals on their land for render because of a growing backlog at abattoirs and processing plants due to the CO2 shortage
📉In a landmark study, scientists from the University of Manchester and the University of Western Australia found that they could reduce the number of children being diagnosed with autism at the age of three, from 20.5% per cent to 6.7%
🔴The intervention involved videoing at-risk babies as they interacted with a parent, before a therapist showed how the child was trying to communicate, so that the parent could respond
🔴Denis Sergeev, a senior military intelligence officer who used the alias Sergey Fedotov, is accused of being part of the team who deployed a deadly nerve agent in an attempt to murder the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia
🚨 Sergeev allegedly carried out the attack alongside his fellow GRU operatives, Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, who were charged by the Crown Prosecution Service under their aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov in September 2018
❌Shoppers face a shortage of meat and even ready-made pizzas long before #Christmas if the carbon dioxide crisis continues, supermarket bosses have warned.
➡️Pork suppliers warned of "farmageddon" within 10 days.
✍️"I’ve never felt confident enough to shout about it, but now I find myself in such good company – with Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s admission that they rarely use soap – that it’s time to speak my dirty truth"
📸Andrew Crowley
Pandemic aside, we just don’t seem to need it, Marina, who is married to Ben Fogle writes.
✍️"I’ve got sensitive skin, you see – I suddenly developed eczema aged 28 and have struggled to control it ever since"