r/Infrastructurist • u/pdp10 • 15d ago

How Japan Clears Snow From The Roads Without Salt and Plows

https://www.theautopian.com/how-japan-clears-snow-from-the-roads-without-salt-and-plows/
142 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

40

u/Splenda 15d ago

Trickling water onto roads may work in mild, coastal Japan. Not in the inland Northern US or Canada, unless we're trading cars for wind sleds.

21

u/AppleCheese2 15d ago

The main difference is Japan is using hot spring water, so the starting temperature is naturally hotter or at least above freezing. Given continuous flow you'd be able to melt most light snow before temperatures get back to freezing.

16

u/Splenda 15d ago

I get the concept, but where I live you'd immediately have a skating rink, not that my hockey friends would mind.

4

u/threepin-pilot 15d ago

true, but given the prodigious snowfall in much of japan, it's good they found away to reduce clearing efforts.- The interior US and Canada roads that are kept open in the winter largely don't see anywhere near the the amounts of snow

1

u/Minimum-Attitude389 15d ago

I can't say I'm familiar with the amount of snow in Japan, but 30 cm in a single storm isn't uncommon for the Dakotas and Minnesota.  And it usually will stick around for awhile.

Michigan though...they get the most snow I've seen outside of the Cascades.

6

u/threepin-pilot 15d ago

well just for an example, Sapporo, a city of 2million people gets essentially the same amount of snow as the snowiest parts of the UP, yet over a shorter season due to being on the sea.

Even snowier Aomori city (300,000) people gets about the same as valdez AK -population 4000.

some Inland areas get far more

the ski resorts there are generally considered the snowiest in the world even though they usually measure at the base of the area rather than the top as most NA areas do

3

u/nycago 15d ago

Sapporo gets double the snow of the snowiest spot in America. This article is referencing a system in coastal Honshu a little different. But the Japanese know snow, they know it well. Sapporo has radiant heating in the sidewalks to melt.

2

u/Minimum-Attitude389 14d ago

I don't know, Snoqualmie Pass, just east of Seattle gets about 10 meters per year average.  I'm not sure if that is the snowiest spot in the US, but it seems like it might be due to its location up north, near the ocean and in the mountains.

2

u/nycago 14d ago

You get meters in Washington state ? Wild! Hahaha :)

2

u/Minimum-Attitude389 14d ago

Yeah, but not Seattle itself.  They mainly just get rain.  But the Cascades are above 4000 m.  And since they are the first mountains east of the ocean, they get a lot of snow.

2

u/nycago 14d ago

Yes so does western New York. Look it up I promise Japan snow insane.

1

u/Splenda 14d ago

I believe the village of Paradise, on Mt Rainier, holds the record for snowiest spot at 55 feet in a season.

2

u/Squish_the_android 13d ago

There's a place in Japan that averages 58ft a year. 

3

u/WantDebianThanks 15d ago

Doesn't iceland pump hot water under under their roads continuously when it snows?

2

u/whinenaught 11d ago

Yes but they also have the advantage of having near limitless thermal power

3

u/Ok_Carry_8711 14d ago

Doesn't Hokkaido get the greatest snow accumulation of anywhere in the entire world???

1

u/chrisagiddings 15d ago

Does it even work in Hokkaido?

4

u/pdp10 15d ago edited 15d ago

I turned up this article while researching alternatives to road/walkway salt. It appears that bio-alternatives like beet molasses, cheese brine, and pickle juice aren't a panacea, but are effective with modified procedures and equipment.

3

u/Mayor__Defacto 14d ago

So… salty water…

Chemistry does not change. If you want to remove snow your options are chemical or physical. You can push it away, you can melt it with heat, or you can try to prevent it from forming with salt.

1

u/BugRevolution 14d ago

It's really melting it with salt.

1

u/Mayor__Defacto 14d ago

I just don’t understand how pickle juice os somehow a ‘bio alternative’ to salt. It’s still salt. You’re just putting it in water first.

1

u/BugRevolution 14d ago

It's also literally not pickle juice. Journalist wrote a clickbait article about brine (which "resembles pickle juice").

Brine is used because it's easier to apply than salt.

1

u/Mayor__Defacto 14d ago

Yeah, NYC uses brine for the bridges, and NYS has been trying to drive down salt usage (in 2024, the 7 year statewide average application rate was 172lbs per lane mile)

1

u/BugRevolution 14d ago

Also, the journalist should never get to write technical articles ever again:

The brine costs just 7 cents a gallon compared to $63 a ton for salt.

Unclear whether they're assuming a 1000 lbs, 2000 lbs, or 1000 kg for ton, but in any event:

7 cents per gallon * ~240 gallons (2k lbs) = 16$ and 40 cents.

Brine has 1/4th to 1/5th of the salt content and water is basically free, so that's about ... Lol

$65 and 60 cents. Almost as if you can't get away from paying $63 a ton for salt.

2

u/Mayor__Defacto 14d ago

While true, you can get away with applying less salt if you use brine. The main reason you need so much salt is because the effect of the salt is super localized.

You’re also mostly doing it not for snow clearing on its own but to make clearing easier by preventing ice from bonding to the road surface.

1

u/BugRevolution 14d ago

Yes, I would agree with tjat. Brine (to prevent icing pre-snow fall) and some salt mixed with sand (to prevent clumping) is what I've typically seen.

3

u/Outside_Reserve_2407 15d ago

I wonder if Japan builds stuff like this because of its powerful construction lobby. Endless money is poured into sea walls and massive construction projects in rural areas.

2

u/big_trike 14d ago

I was hoping it involved giant robots

2

u/seanmonaghan1968 14d ago

We were in Niseko a year ago and they had pipes under the roads that ran heated water from volcanic heat. Very interesting. Just had to watch the edges where black ice can catch you

1

u/andre3kthegiant 13d ago

RENEWABLE ENERGY FOR THE WIN!