road

Beets for Road Ice Removal

- Adam Clare

The traditional approach to deicing roads is to cover the roads (and thus the ground around the road) in salt – which is absolutely awful for the environment. Because so many people drive cars the demand for road salt is high and has come to negatively impact local economies and environments.

There is a solution to make salting less damaging and it’s already being used in some communities.

Beets are usually just used to create sugar or, like at Schrute Farms, beet soup. In Ontario roadworks departments have been using a byproduct from beet sugar processing to clear ice off of roads. They mix the beet byproduct with salt to create a new brine that works better and harms less.

Niagara Region has used the mixture for about three years, resulting in a 30 per cent reduction in road salt which damages tender fruit trees and vines, said Dave MacLeod, the region’s manager of transportation operations and technology.
The Ontario transportation ministry is working with Oakville and Grey County to test the effectiveness of other beet juice-based products that are added to brine, said a ministry spokesman.
“The ministry’s objective is to provide safe highways for all travellers by using the best available technology. At the same time, we recognize our responsibility to protect the environment, so we use technology to help us determine the best way to clear our highways in the most environmentally friendly, cost-effective way,” he said.

Read more at The Star.

Asphalt That Fixes Its Own Potholes

- Adam Clare

Asphalt covers a lot of world and is worth billions of dollars and the entire industries rely on this material to make roads to transport goods. The catch is, this material that we use to make our roads is bad for the environment and requires a lot of maintenance. Filling potholes and similar road damage takes time, labour, and of course, even more asphalt.

In Germany some researchers have found a way to make asphalt self-repairing meaning that the road can last a lot longer before patching is required and will require less maintenance!

A Greener Asphalt

- Adam Clare

Roads are often overlooked when it comes to the impact of cars on the environment, but we can’t ignore the roads have on the environment when discussing the practicality of cars. Asphalt is used to make roads and the process of creating asphalt is very energy intensive. In Vancouver, they are looking into ways to lower the negative impact of car infrastructure by making greener roads.

First, it allows asphalt to be heated at 20 to 40 degrees less than is necessary when using the traditional “hot mix” method. This reduces the amount of fuel necessary for the process, which in turn reduces the resulting greenhouse-gas production by as much as 50 per cent. Second, although there are other paving materials that have similar characteristics, they’re normally made of petroleum products. GreenMantra’s product comes from recycled plastics.

The wax is slightly more expensive than petroleum-based materials, but GreenMantra and the City of Vancouver are looking to bring down the cost by sourcing cheaper plastic. The price could also drop of its own accord, as GreenMantra begins to produce the stuff in greater quantities.

Read more at the Torontoist.

Bike Lanes Makes Road Safer for Everyone

- Adam Clare

The worst mayor in Canada hates people who don’t drive automobiles and thinks cyclists deserve to die. The mayor of Toronto wants to remove bike lanes (while every smart city is installing more) despite the fact that the number of cyclists has increased. So where’s the good news you ask?

It turns out (much to the chagrin of mayor Rob Ford) that bike lanes improve safety for all road users!

The Toronto Cyclists Union has drummed up a City staff report that compares crash data in the three years previous to the bike lanes and the one year with the bike lanes. The report finds that the overall crash rate for Jarvis has actually decreased by 23 percent. That’s for all road users—bicycles, cars, and pedestrians. In fact, the report notes that “most of this reduction can be attributed to the reduction in collisions involving motor vehicle turning movements and collisions involving pedestrians.”

But the bike lanes have also been better for cyclists. While the number of bicycle-car collisions has increased from an average of 7 per year in the three years prior to the bike lane to 15 in the year with the bike lane, the report notes this still represents a drop in the rate of collision when you take into consideration the fact that the number of bicycles increased threefold post-bike lane implementation.

Read more at Spacing.

Solar Snow Removal

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

It should come to no surprise that the sun melts snow and ice. Indeed, one of the reasons we have such severe climate change is because the energy from the sun isn’t being reflected off of snow (the albedo effect).

Some enterprising researchers have proposed that we capture the energy the sun is tossing at us by using roads to store energy that can be later used to melt snow or provide energy. Imagine all the roads in North America as an energy source!

“We have mile after mile of asphalt pavement around the country, and in the summer it absorbs a great deal of heat, warming the roads up to 140 degrees or more,” said K. Wayne Lee, URI professor of civil and environmental engineering and the leader of the joint project. “If we can harvest that heat, we can use it for our daily use, save on fossil fuels, and reduce global warming.”
The URI team has identified four potential approaches, from simple to complex, and they are pursuing research projects designed to make each of them a reality.
One of the simplest ideas is to wrap flexible photovoltaic cells around the top of Jersey barriers dividing highways to provide electricity to power streetlights and illuminate road signs. The photovoltaic cells could also be embedded in the roadway between the Jersey barrier and the adjacent rumble strip.
“This is a project that could be implemented today because the technology already exists,” said Lee. “Since the new generation of solar cells are so flexible, they can be installed so that regardless of the angle of the sun, it will be shining on the cells and generating electricity. A pilot program is progressing for the lamps outside Bliss Hall on campus.”
Another practical approach to harvesting solar energy from pavement is to embed water filled pipes beneath the asphalt and allow the sun to warm the water. The heated water could then be piped beneath bridge decks to melt accumulated ice on the surface and reduce the need for road salt. The water could also be piped to nearby buildings to satisfy heating or hot water needs, similar to geothermal heat pumps. It could even be converted to steam to turn a turbine in a small, traditional power plant.

Read the rest at Physorg

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