The first leg of his new policy would be to tackle what has long been one of the real scandals of the way we use energy, by wasting colossal amounts of heat from power generation. This could be used to warm most of the buildings in the country by what is known as “combined heat and power” (CHP). Official figures from the US government show just how dramatically gas-fired CHP compares with the inefficiencies of wind and solar power. At well over twice their efficiency, a CHP system can generate more than twice as much electricity as wind, and, furthermore, produces large quantities of heat, at significantly less cost – while actually saving 50 per cent more in CO₂ emissions. And if ever we can emulate the “shale revolution” that has recently cut US gas prices by two-thirds, the costs of CHP would be even lower.