# Why Don't We Melt Snow? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 4, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161 "2011-02-04T16:05:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/41 "2011-02-04T22:59:19Z")
Many cities in Japan have [sprinkler systems](http://www.google.com/images?q=%E6%B6%88%E9%9B%AA%E3%83%91%E3%82%A4%E3%83%97&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1333&bih=925) on roads to melt snow. They usually use groundwater which is warm enough to melt the snow without additional heating. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/42 "2011-02-05T00:44:22Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > I don’t think you are getting the whole energy cost of what you are proposing, nor the scale of the problem. It’s much cheaper for the people who need to travel to buy snow tires and 4WD, and for everyone else to stay home. > [@Telemark](#): > > Because all you’d have is a building full of snow and dump trucks full of snow lined up outside with no place to put it. The energy cost and logistics are well beyond what you are thinking. The building would basically have to be a power plant doing nothing but melting snow, and it still probably couldn’t keep up. Although the cost isn’t really something municipalities who rarely get snow can afford, if you’re going to have lots of snow and don’t want the city grinding to a halt every couple of weeks, you do what Montreal does; physically remove the snow from the streets and dump it at designated dump sites. Montreal uses giant snow blowers to load up dump trucks, which drive to specific locations (I know one is an unused rail yard, another is part of the ports) and dump the snow. The entire city gets cleaned up within about a week, with major arteries being clear 48 hours after a storm. We had a good dumping of snow on Wednesday; half our street got done last night, the other half gets done tonight - they split it because of on-street parking. If you leave your car parked on the side that’s going to get cleared, the city tows your car and leaves it on a side street somewhere, and fines you (I don’t know how much). Then, when spring rolls around, the snow melts. After a heavy winter, the last bit of now very filthy snow tends to disappear by August or so! Montreal [budgets](http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=5637,30739566&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL)about $145 million a year to clear all of its boroughs. [Video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE6N7CDV-9s)of the process, because it’s so damn cool! ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/43 "2011-02-05T00:53:09Z")
Back when I was going to school at York University, (which would be in the later 90s,) after one huge blizzard I remember people saying that somebody in charge had ‘sent in the Army’ to deal with the snow. What the Army apparently had, for some reason, was big machines that would do all this - it would melt the piles of snow left by the plows and run the water down the storm drains in the street. I don’t think I actually saw one of the melter machines, but I believe that I did see some of the snow piles suddenly vanish over the course of a day or so. And the explanation for why this wasn’t done every time it snowed was, yes, the cost of running the machine. But there was so much snow all over the place, even days after the blizzard, that it was a major problem for getting back to business as usual. (I think I even remember something about people whose cars had been plowed under who couldn’t dig them out because there was nowhere to dig out too.) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/44 "2011-02-05T01:31:45Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > As mentioned below, not any more they don’t. Well, they do, but not directly. Most northern cities (like here in Minneapolis) have locations (empty lots, parkland, river flats, etc.) where they dump snow during the winter. Then when spring comes, it melts, and makes its way to the Mississippi River, eventually. But along the way it is filtered through the ground, creeks, lakes, wetlands, etc. so that it’s much cleaner by the time it actually gets into the river (or an aquifer). Also has the advantage that this takes a while, so the risk of flooding is reduced. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/45 "2011-02-05T01:57:26Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > So what’s wrong with having a fleet of monkey-driven jet-powered funny cars blasting down Wacker or Lake Shore Drive?😃 I’d have thought the price of sunglasses and cigarettes would be prohibitive right there. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/46 "2011-02-05T02:12:16Z")
> [@sweepkick](#): > > The Russians don’t mess around when it comes to snow and ice removal: > > [http://www.automotto.org/entry/in-russia-jet-engines-go-to-work-as-snow-blowers/](http://www.automotto.org/entry/in-russia-jet-engines-go-to-work-as-snow-blowers/) OMG, that’s the old Rolls Royce Nene engine the Soviets reverse engineered for the Mig-15. It’s a 1940’s design. A simple idea would be to vacuum up the snow into a trash compacting style truck which would squeeze it into water. pull up to a sewer and dump as needed. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/47 "2011-02-05T02:18:57Z")
_Squeeze_ it into water? How? All you’d get is snowballs! I mean, unless you were using cosmic-style pressures or something, and you’d have to check the phase diagram of water to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/48 "2011-02-05T03:52:35Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > _Squeeze_ it into water? How? All you’d get is snowballs! I mean, unless you were using cosmic-style pressures or something, and you’d have to check the phase diagram of water to be sure. Squeeze it with a hydraulic ram. Pressure = heat. It’s the reason turbochargers need intercoolers. You could also run the trucks exhaust through pipes around the chamber to ultilize scavenged heat. So to summarize, you heat the snow in the process of sucking it up, compressing it, and heating it with engine heat. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/49 "2011-02-05T03:54:09Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > Hell, let’s do the math. One mile of residential street, 25 feet wide, with an inch of snow on it, will have about 300 cubic meters of snow on it. If snow is about one-tenth as dense as water, then its density is about 100 kg per cubic metre. So you’ve got about 30 metric tons of frozen water on the street. Melting this amount of water requires about 10 billion joules; heating it to 100°C requires 13 billion joules; and turning it to steam requires another 70 billion. The energy content of a U.S. gallon of gasoline is approximately 130 million joules, so we’re talking a grand total of 80 gallons of gasoline to melt all that snow, 100 gallons to warm it to boiling, and and another 500 gallons (!) or so to turn it into steam. > > So the grand total for your plan requires the energy equivalent of almost 700 gallons of gasoline — multiplied by the number of miles of streets you have and the number of inches of snow that have fallen. (Remember, the calculation above assumed one mile of road with one inch of snow on it.) If, as recently happened, Chicago got a foot of snow, you’d need nearly half a billion gallons of gasoline (or energy equivalent) to melt all the snow. At that rate, it’d probably be more energy-efficient to give everyone in the USA a four-wheel drive SUV and not bother plowing the streets at all. Hell, let’s do a little more math. My small suburban town has 27,000 residents and 221 miles of street. The city doesn’t call out the plows until there’s at least 2" of snow already on the ground. So, to melt the two inches of snow on the 221 miles of street takes approximately 35,360 gallons of gasoline. Assuming the city gets a break on the price of gas, and can get it for $2.50 a gallon, that works out to $88,400 per snowfall, or $3.27 per resident for a rather piddling snowfall. Now this area averages about 20 inches of snow per year. Let’s say only half of that comes in snowfalls of more than 2 inches, leaving 10 inches per year that has to be plowed. Now we’re talking 166,800 gallons of gas to melt the snow, with a total cost of $417,000, or $15.44 per resident, per year. Damn good thing I don’t live in Buffalo. ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/50 "2011-02-05T06:12:31Z")
Suppose we used a 1920’s Style Death Ray to vaporize the snow? And it could be used to eliminate flies and ants during a Summer picnic as well. In the Fall to get rid of fallen leaves. In the Spring to disappear noisy children that wake me from my afternoon nap. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/51 "2011-02-05T06:53:12Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Yes. One inch of rain over frozen ground is more disruptive than 12 inches of snow. Am I the only one who initially read this as sarcasm? I was all set to explain how ice is often more dangerous than snow, but now I think I was just reading wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/52 "2011-02-05T07:03:44Z")
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**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/53 "2011-02-05T07:57:57Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > Suppose we used a 1920’s Style Death Ray to vaporize the snow? And look, it’s been perfected. I knew today’s youth were more than a bunch of sexting slackers. > **[Look what I made, mum! Teenager builds 'death-ray' which can burn through...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351935/Eric-Jacqmain-invented-Death-ray-dish-intensity-5-000-suns.html)** > > Nineteen-year-old Eric Jacqmain, from Indiana in the US, covered an ordinary fibreglass satellite dish with 5,800 tiny mirror tiles. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/54 "2011-02-05T21:07:02Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > Suppose we used a 1920’s Style Death Ray to vaporize the snow? Why, when you could use the 1940’s Style Melt Ray? > [@Magiver](#): > > OMG, that’s the old Rolls Royce Nene engine the Soviets reverse engineered for the Mig-15. It’s a 1940’s design. ---
**Author:** ![Johninsana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@Johninsana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johninsana)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/55 "2015-02-28T21:55:02Z")
I know im late to this discussion this is my first post too NYC has 10,000 km of roads. If their all 2 lanes thats about 6m wide and lets say they get 1m of snow per year. I looked up the amount of roads, and their probably larger than 2 lanes and this also doesnt include any municipal parking lots or sidewalks etc. So 1m of snow is probably on the high side but its a reasonable assumption. I looked up the density of snow and it ranges from 100-800 kg/m^3. 100 makes the easiest math. 10,000,000 m of roads x 6m wide x 1m of snow= 60,000,000 m^3 of snow/yr. thats at least 6,000,000,000 kg of snow per yr and when you melt it it would still be the same weight in water. Latent heat of fusion for water is 334kj/kg so you need 2,004,000,000,000 kj to melt the snow or 2x10^15 j. Thats on the scale of the largest nuclear weapons. 1kWh is 3.6x10^6 j and in NYC electricity is just under 20¢/kWh your looking at costs on the order of $200,000,000 with 100% efficency. And this is also if the snow is already at 0C if its colder it will use more energy to raise the temp of the snow before changing it to water. With another measure a barrel of oil has around 6x10^9 j so you have to burn around 1,000,000 barrells of oil once again at 100% efficency so near $50,000,000 at current prices. NYC has a snow removal budget of ~$60,000,000. It would seem that burning oil would be a good idea(1,000,000 barrels is on the very low end of estimated) but in reality it would probably be well below 50% because you cant capture all the heat and oil prices are pretty low at this point not to mention sll the pollution. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/56 "2015-02-28T22:00:18Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > It’ll freeze is one huge issue. > > I actually tried this when I was a kid. In the backyard we couldn’t use salt, 'cause of Mr Dog and I got tired of using kitty litter for traction on recently shoveled back yard walkways. > > So I decided to melt the snow. It worked OK, but it always seemed to leave a small residue of water that froze up and was more trouble than it was worth. Interesting…how did you melt it? ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/57 "2015-03-01T00:33:24Z")
If you burn enough oil, you’ll reduce the need for clearing snow in the future, so it’s a win-win situation. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/58 "2015-03-01T04:43:43Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Interesting…how did you melt it? **Markxxx** was banned like a year or two ago so I doubt he’ll return to tell us the secret. Maybe [this](http://what-if.xkcd.com/130/) will tell you everything you need to know about melting snow, though. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/59 "2015-03-01T05:28:32Z")
Wouldn’t you also have to worry about floods? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161/60 "2015-03-01T05:46:59Z")
IIRC, the melter referenced in the video was supposed to dump the meltwater down the storm sewer. Even in the dead of winter, many of these will be open; pipes are deep enough to never freeze (imagine the damage if they did - pipes wouldn’t unplug until May, and all April the city would flood from melt and rain). The logic was that many snow dumps in the Toronto area were getting to be tens of miles out of town, in crappy stop-and-go traffic, so the cost of hauling a dumptruck load of snow too far was comparable to the cost of melting it. A place like Ottawa might be small enough the fuel calculation goes the other way, cheaper to haul to the outskirts. The EPA rules are not as stupid as they sound. If you dump a huge load of road snow directly into a river, it breaks through any ice and there is a huge amount of road salt, car exhaust and leaking oil, and garbage, all dumped into the water at once. A giant snow dump that melts over 3 months in spring will trickle that pollution in slowly, diluted by rainwater and added to the river’s water in small stages as it flows by. Garbage and sand likely remains behind at the site for cleanup after the melt. For the same reason, the snow melters, if used as a major means of snow clearance, risk sending dollops of polluted water into the local river. Probably for that reason they are not recommended. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-melt-snow/570161.md?page=4)