Mostly because we build streets and sidewalks the way they are built in places that don’t frost. I think it’s time to evaluate how we build sidewalks and streets in this area. It would be an interesting project to geothermally heat the road/bike lane/sidewalk at the bottom of Spring Garden Road, where buses are always getting stuck. —heat, don’t plow
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2015.
Great idea! We will fund that project by dropping the film “tax credit”…
I had the same thoughts this past winter. The trick would be to find an economical, environmentally friendly way to do it.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/iceland-has-heated-sidewalks-why-not-edmonton-1.2461361
A source of goethermal power would be required for that, which Iceland has plenty of. Waste heat from Tuffs cove could be used, as has been mentioned before. Sounds pricey though.
Another source of geothermal power would be the hot air pumped out each day on Bitch. It would be both economical and environmentally friendly.
Heat the roads… Are you fucking kidding me? What a colossal waste of energy. Iceland can do it likely because the island is on an active plate boundary and has tons of geothermal activity near the surface. Many of our roads go through issues during the winter because 50-100 years ago (when many of the roads in Halifax/Dartmouth were built) geotechnical engineering was not well understood or implemented. Now, we use materials in the bases of roads and sidewalks which is resistant to frost heave and the results are much more favourable. Fixing the existing infrastructure to modern standards is expensive and disruptive already, let alone installing heating pipes below everything.
Yeah, I don’t think you know how much is required to melt snow…
Good ol’ xkcd to the rescue:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/130/
Couldn’t we just use beetjuice? Or cheese brine? Or heated beetjuice?
Solar roads.
http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml
Holy shit, heated plows are the answer.
Geothermal heated plows.
^^ Solar roadways. Good one!
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/06/this-video-explains-why-solar-roadways-will-not-work/
Myself, I’m agitating for a domed city. Why waste them on Mars? We need one here. Shorts and t-shirts all year round!
http://www.shutterstock.com/s/futuristic+dome/search.html?page=1&inline=112443530
Oh Full o’ Beans, pulling the classic “i found this video of a guy who sounds smart on the internet taking about something so he must be right”.
^^^ Gizmodo is a world wide tech blog. I think their publishing the video gives it a “bit” more credibility than just a random video found on Youtube.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizmodo
“Gizmodo (/ɡɪzˈmoÊŠdoÊŠ/ giz-MOH-doh) is a design and technology blog”
It’s still a blog, that does tech reviews, and the work put into that video is not enough to say the tech isn’t viable. Too many “I doubt this will work” without substantiation and giving no credit to our ability to iterate an improve. There are so many factors that go into this stuff and he’s only picking out the potential negatives. I don’t think solar road ways are viable yet, but if a dude and his wife in his back yard can come up with something like that, I imagine a university or private company could come up with something significantly better.
My recommendation, don’t use mickey mouse tech reviews to try and squash something that could be really awesome. Sure, think critically about it, as this guy is doing, but don’t dismiss the idea too quickly.
^^^ as with any technology, some will be successful and some never will. I’m not saying this technology will never happen but there are many challenges – not least of which is the cost efficiency. By the time they work out all of the kinks in the technology something else (nuclear fission for example) may have overtaken it and made it obsolete. http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-reactor.htm
My beef with the SolarRoadways folks and their video is it is all fluff and flashing lights. It makes me very suspicious that it is more hype than anything.
Here is an example of a real solar roadway pilot project in the Netherlands – notice the lack of flashing lights and gimmicks.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dutch-test-solaroad-solar-panels-on-bike-path-1.2831630
I think we’re on the same page, I might have been a little knee jerky, anonymous internet can do that to us. My bad.
Have you ever taken a blow torch to snow?
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……t…h…e……s…n…o…w……m…e…l…t…s…!.