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BBC Inside Science: Heatwave: the consequences

Deep Space and the Deep Sea - 40 years of the International Whaling Moratorium.

Heatwave: the consequences

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Heatwave: the consequences

What are the consequences of the recent UK heatwave for us, plants and our energy supply.

Inside Science dedicates the show to the recent heatwave. What did it do to our attitudes to climate change, and our crops? And can we use the excess heat to heat us this winter?

The severity of last week's heatwave is changing the narrative. Gaia Vince talks to Simon Evans, deputy editor of the climate publication Carbon Brief, who has been following the media coverage of this heatwave, and Lorraine Whitmarsh, professor of environmental psychology at the university of Bath. 

What has the recent hot weather done to the plants in our gardens, and the crops in our fields? Dr Nicola Cannon from the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester tells us the low-down. Expect your potatoes to get more expensive this autumn. The RHS want to know about how the heatwave has affected YOUR garden. You can help science by answering on this survey  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NVNH5FN  

What if we could use all the excess heat from summer, and store it to heat our homes in winter. It's something a team in the Netherlands and Austria have been looking at, using a thermochemical battery. Wim van Helden from AEE Institute in Gleisdorf in Austria explains how they made a prototype, and what the stumbling blocks are to widespread use of their system.

Is this thermal battery the holy grail of heat supply? We run it, and other options, past Michael de Podestra. An ex-measurement scientist at the National Physics Laboratory until his retirement two years ago, he has since become an expert in retrofitting his house to try and make it carbon-neutral.

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Heatwave: the consequences

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