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Seven days... National media story by NUMBERS Gas futures Freeze drives up US gas and power prices Spot US energy markets witnessed explosive price rises as utilities and power plants scrambled ahead of what forecasters warned would be the coldest day of the 21st century so far. Tuesday. The moves from New York to Texas brought back memories of the natural gas and power markets of the previous decade, before the shale drilling boom unleashed new supplies and damped volatility. The Financial Times EU urged to set 2030 green energy target Ministers from Germany, France and six other countries have called for the EU to set a 2030 goal for renewable energy use, in opposition to their British counterpart, who advocates a sole greenhouse gas emissions target. The Guardian Former British Gas boss Phil Bentley gets Cable & Wireless job The former head of British Gas has begun work at his new firm – with almost £5 million in shares and an office in Florida. Phil Bentley started as chief executive of Cable & Wireless Communications at the start of January. This is Money £54 Average annual bill reduction for Scottish Power customers following the green levy rollback 4 | 10th - 16th January 2014 | UTILITY WEEK Meeting renewable energy targets over the next 20 years could increase Britain's need for peak period gasfired generation while the annual demand for gas turbine power declines, National Grid has said. 30% The amount by which peak gas demand for power generation could grow over the next 20 years 32% The amount by which total annual gas demand will fall over the same period 38% The projected annual drop in demand for gasfired generation over the same period Ex -employee attacks Environment Agency The Environment Agency is under pressure from anonymous allegations that it misused public funds, at the same time as its depleted workforce tries to tackle widespread flooding. An ex-employee, identifying himself only as "Henry", has published a blog accusing the agency of endemic fraud, bullying and mismanagement. In nearly 30 posts, all dated January 2014, he made a broad range of charges against his former colleagues, including racially motivated targeting and manipulation of incident data. A number of commenters corroborated his charges, while others called him a "traitor" and rebutted his assertions. Henry wrote that leaving the organisation "has given me the opportunity to express openly the internal mindset and inefficient operations of the organisation that I once held to high esteem". "We need much better grid interconnectors around Europe to enable energy to flow across the EU" Ed Davey plugs interconnectors to The Independent Contacted by Utility Week, Henry said he had lodged a complaint with Environment Agency chief executive Paul Leinster. However, this was denied by an Environment Agency spokesperson. The spokesperson said: "We take all complaints of misuse of public funds seriously. We have made attempts to contact the individual so that they may lodge a complaint formally and, if they wish to, use the Environment Agency whistleblowing policy or make a public information disclosure. In the meantime, we are monitoring the posts to assess if we have enough information to instigate our own investigation." The agency is slashing 15 per cent of its staff to 9,700 by next October. In the light of recent flooding, some have questioned whether the agency can effectively maintain protection for those at risk. MD £50 Typical amount SSE and Npower will cut from customers' annual dual fuel