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1948 Mayor To MIT: Use Flamethrowers To Melt Snow?
An anonymous reader writes "In 1948 Boston mayor James Curley freaked out because of the record amounts of snow. He wrote to MIT and begged for help, even suggested using flamethrowers to melt it. (Check out the original type-written letter.)"
I'd like to head out there and just use some brush burners to get rid of the snow on my driveway.
That's like trying to use a frickin' flamethrower to melt snow....oh wait. :D
don't cities like this have steam plants with steam pipes through significant portions of the city? divert some steam to melt some snow
When the snow melts, the contaminants are going to go into the river anyway, so why does it make sense to ban dumping the snow in the river?
Anyway, in my thermodynamics class back in college, one problem we were given was to calculate how much energy it would take to melt all the snow across the campus. The thermodynamics does not work to the advantage of economically getting rid of the snow using flamethrowers.
I'm not sure what we will do if another 12" falls.
Although gasoline and flamethrowers would just lead to fires, I've wondered what a 100K BTU industrial propane heater would do. (Picture below.) Has anyone tried this?
http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/hvac/heaters/kerosene-propane/propane-heater-forced-air-50000-btu?utm_source=nextag&utm_medium=shp&utm_campaign=Propane-Kerosene-nextag&utm_term=245995&infoParam.campaignId=WI
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Tell him we need a giant version, STAT.
MG
Kill it with fire.
"You're awefully cute, but unfortunately for you, you're made of meat."
Check this out: http://www.automotto.org/entry/in-russia-jet-engines-go-to-work-as-snow-blowers/
The Sun is ineffective at melting the snow.
Higher air temperatures melt the snow.
If you've ever lived somewhere that gets snow cover and then arctic high pressure fronts you'd know that snow and clear sunny days equal record low temperatures.
WE dont, the only reason we have these problems are cheap bastards against spending taxes.
IT is trivial to make roadways heated to keep ice and snow buildup down. Many large corporations and rich people have this already. Problem is a bunch of idiots whine like babies if we spend tax dollars heating sidewalks and roads in the cities.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Step 1: build pier into the ocean
Step 2: push snow off pier into ocean
Step 3: ????
Step 4: PROFIT!!!!!!
-Runz
Doesn't the Secret Service have a supply of flame throwers they've used in the past to clear out streets when the president is suddenly snowed in somewhere? I remember reading about that, but I don't remember which president it was for...
what percentage of our corporates employees really even need to be present, 25%? 15%?
Many cities use snow melters to deal with snow; that's basically the same thing. I really wonder why environmentalists aren't up in arms about it; the snow melters can burn hundreds of gallons of fuel an hour, which is more fuel than it takes to a heat a house for a month.
Please help metamoderate.
The reason sun doesn't melt snow too fast is it's white. Sprinkle a little black ash on it and watch it just sink. Dirty snow always melts faster.
They could just be sprinkling ash around on the snowbanks and huge snowpiles to get things melting faster. Such a simple idea, I don't know why they're not doing it. Ash isn't too environmentally unfriendly... certainly better than all the salt they're using.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
If you read the letter, the mayor's primary concern at the time was that the accumulation from the snow piling up all winter and not melting until spring would cause massive flooding when the temperature did finally rise enough to melt it all. So, the solution he was looking for was something that would melt the snow gradually during the winter rather than having to wait for it to all melt at once in the spring.
Given the fact that they're facing similar problems today, we can conclude that MIT failed to come up with anything useful in response to the mayor's query. It would be nice to know what their response was, if they responded at all.
I live in an area that was buried under 4-6 feet of snow over night back in December. The city I live in borrowed special trucks equipped with a flame device from the City of Toronto to melt snow in the down town area instead of trying to load it on to trucks with Loaders and haul it out and dump it some where. So, ya it's perfectly reasonable...
Kill all the snow with fire!
But it's DIRTY and I don't want it in my neighborhood! That's why I just pour my automotive antifreeze on my driveway. Clean and good-smelling!
+1 Disagree
I think a slightly more sensible version of flamethrowers would be to use giant halogen heaters in place of streetlights, and feed them megawatts of energy. Quite apart from solving the snow problem, we could even keep our streets warm that way for people to walk along generally.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
How about those NASCAR jet engine track dryers.
Now get off my freshly melted lawn.
No brain, no pain.
The snowblower was invented in Montreal, for a good reason: they get lots of snow, and it stays in place until March. Hence the city has come up with an almost militaristic solution. It involves giant snowblowers, dump trucks, blinking red lights, and looking for your car (which is not where you parked it) after the city crews come up your street: http://chicagomontreal.blogspot.com/2006/01/snow-removal-in-montreal.html
Okay, let's say you melt the snow with a giant flamethrower. Then what do you do? Move on to the next patch with your giant flamethrower. What happens to the first patch that you burned the crap out of? It re-freezes, not into another snow drift, but a sheet of ice several inches thick.
What does it take to melt one kilogram of snow vs shovel it up and truck it away? The latent heat of fusion of ice is 335 kJ/kg. So what does it take to truck it away? This would depend in part on the packing density of the snow.
And don't forget the teamsters wages for plow/truck drivers vs the Flame Thrower Local contract terms.
Have gnu, will travel.
Check this supersonic fantasy machine: http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/12/16/the-sno-melter-1960.html
That reminded me of a post on Gizmodo awhile back where someone was already doing that.
The problem was solved a long, long time ago. Modern vehicles can even be adapted to the same basic design. There is really no reason for a little snow to scare anyone.
I first watched this film in German ... and then I watched it later in English ... some guy (with a brilliant Texan accent) traded some guns with flame throwers and nets to some creepy crawler alien folks for stones which they didn't have. It's a hoot and a half!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Most major northern airports have snow melters that do exactly that, melt snow. They work pretty well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNERNVAlAMo
Of course, we can't have our railways held hostage by snow either, in that case, they just strap a jet engine onto a rail care and melt snow that way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5OrCCGV6hg&feature=related
Where there is a problem, we'll find a solution!
Maybe this is what the mayor had in mind. http://www.bjs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10201&storeId=10201&partNumber=P_117833646&sc_cid=EE20110127:56
Tell you what, I'll tell them to go ahead---- And send the bill to you.
Cute - you want a public service, but payment should be provided only by those who admit that it's necessary. Just pretending you don't need it - but happily benefiting from it - means you get to leach of other people who are more honest. Is that the idea?
My south facing house gets plenty of sun and the snow on my lawn melts even without the temperature getting very high. My neighbors house across the street (north facing) doesn't.
What could possibly go wrong?
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Short of bright sunny and 80F (which is unlikely in February in the Northeast), warm air (> 30 F) and fog is most effective at melting snow. The fog acts as a reasonable thermal conductor accelerating the snow melt. Surprising, rain is lousy at melting snow and just creates a mess. Cold and bright sun does melt some snow--especially if it's been plowed and is on blacktop (aka asphalt or bituminous concrete). Overtime, the snow also compresses so it appears to be melting.
This sounds rather unlikely, as what lunatic is going to run the risk of putting an airframe in the sky with explosives on it instead of just delivering them from the ground? It's not like there's any need for a deep strike mission!
And it clears up the pesky stray pet population.
So, they can't dump it into the river because of contaminants, but instead they'll wait for it to melt and wash into the river?
Am I missing something here?
Ash isn't too environmentally unfriendly
That depends on how much ash is used.
the russians don't mess around when it comes to snow removal. they take a klimov vk-1 jet engine from a mig-15 and strap it on a truck, amongst other eyebrow raising configurations:
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/08/jet-engines-on-trucks-for-fun-and.html
i think i would step a little livelier if i saw a snow plow like that coming at me down the street
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
howabout one meellion B. T. U.s ?!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Something about letters from that era that are just so simply elegant. I love reading letters from that time.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Not all drains go straight to the nearest water source. It's possible it goes through a quick treatment first.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
No, warm air currents provide the heat, often from the ocean or large bodies of water.
The air temperature is key for melting snow, but warm air does get warm for a reason.
(even on those record low days you talk about, ever notice the wider swing between day and night temperatures?)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I was referring to ash from burning, which is quite a bit different than "coal ash". Isn't coal ash a petroleum compound? fire ash is mostly just carbon.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
We actually have invented two transportation methods that are easy to keep running regardless of how much snow is falling / has fallen...
The subway and elevated railway (el). The biggest problems are when the lines transition from elevated to underground, and any surface portions.
An elevated line could run through most of the worst storms we've had. All of the wind that causes snow drifts that wreak havoc on roads actually clears el tracks. The open nature of the track bed on els allow for any buildup to simply fall to the street as the trains go by.
Classic els are pretty cheap and easy to build (a simple steel framework above existing roads), and could keep our economy going in the worst of snowstorms. But they're noisy and ugly thus people don't like them.
Bad Snowstorm in Philly from the El
As the video progresses you can see cars struggling harder to get through and getting stuck, but the el speeds along as fast as if it were a summer day.
If the mayor wanted to get the best use of MIT, he could just send naked pictures of Seven of Nine to the entire student body. The heat from so many nerds spontaneously combusting would be more than sufficient to melt the snow.
There's an extremely long history of people considering that actions that lead to a bad result are bad, while inaction that leads to the same bad result is much less bad. I'm not saying it's a logical mindset, but it is very definitely how humans think. A common example, when ethics and economics people talk about this, is: if you push someone in front of a train you're a murderer, but if you don't pull someone who is on the tracks off, or signal the train to stop, you're merely a selfish bastard.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
And. . What warmed the air currents?
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
Call Al Gore, he can fix it! lol
Given the fact that they're facing similar problems today, we can conclude that MIT failed to come up with anything useful in response to the mayor's query. It would be nice to know what their response was, if they responded at all.
It's actually an interesting read: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/curley/index1.html; the link contains the original letter AND MIT's response.
tl;dr: Here's a summary of the response (dated Jan 28, 1948)
The night before John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, a snowstorm dumped 8 inches of snow on Washington DC. The Army Corps of Engineers worked franticly, using flamethrowers to clear the streets. Click here for the full story.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
The sea, land, the Great Lakes, Great Salt Lake, the Caspian Sea, currents whatever local and regional geography is moving air and water around.
Look at where I live, Anchorage Alaska. See in the winter for a long period of time we really don't get much Sun to speak of, when it is out it's really low in the sky and dim. Because of the ocean being so close and our having bodies of brackish water on two sides we have pretty mild winters, 12-31-10 was 34 for a high with a low of 28. Inland just 120 miles away on the same day, with the same amount of sunlight it was 19 for a high and -2 for a low.
So what was the difference? Not the Sun, the ocean.
Yea, ultimately 99.999% of the heat in the Solar System comes form the Sun, however air masses and ocean currents are independent from day to day solar radiation.
If one wanted to they could blame rising CO2 levels on the Sun. Since 600 million years ago the Sun was out and made the plants grow and then they died and turned into coal and oil and then we pulled that out of the ground and burned it.
Its the Sun's goddamned fault.
Everything is better with flamethrowers. Even flamethrowers are better with flamethrowers. And flamethrowers with flamethrowers are awesome if you put flamethrowers on them.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Coal ash is the residue from burning coal. Were coal actually just chunks of carbon, it would be largely inoffensive(and a gas). Trouble is, coal tends to contain a number of interesting trace elements, sulfur, heavy metals, and similar fun. Thus, in quantity, the stuff left over that either doesn't burn, or burns into a solid compound of some kind, can kill its way quite merrily through a watershed.
Other than posing some dust irritant/inhalation hazard when airborne, reasonably pure carbon black could be sprinkled on top of snow to accelerate its melting without serious issues...
Not sure if this is a joke, but flamethrowers use napalm.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Most snow melters work at very high thermal efficiencies (90 - 98%). Typically, one ton of snow requires 1.5 US gallon of diesel to melt. Remember, snow is not ice -- it's far less dense.
http://www.snowmelter.com/en/snowmelters_faq.php
Snow melters can melt anything from 20 to 5000 tons of snow/hour, depending on their design capacity. Airports already use this technology extensively -- it's nothing new.
http://www.snowmelter.com/en/clients.php
How long until a flame thrower lingers a bit too long on a patch of asphalt and the road starts burning? I guess the added fire would help clear the snow, though.
It is unwise to ascribe motive
Didn't you have any problems dealing with the melt water? I would think that the water would just re-freeze when it runs off the heated part.
Since we just had a major snowfall in the Chicago area, I'd just point out that I have piles of snow next to my driveway that are at their highest almost 6ft tall from clearing the driveway and sidewalks. It's not possible to clear the driveway of snow and ice completely, due it not being perfectly flat.
I cleared the driveway down to about 1/2 an inch of snow, and spread salt on it.
My driveway is now dry - not covered in either ice or salt water - there is a dry salt residue on it.
The water didn't run off, it evaporated, probably due to the very low humidity of the air.
Putting moderation advice in your
Yes, and the reason is that most of the heat delivered by the sun goes into heating the ground, which heats the air next to it by conduction. Some solar energy gets absorbed by the atmosphere as it passes through, but not much.
When the ground is covered in snow, most of that solar energy gets reflected right back into space and fails to heat the ground.
A flame thrower would indeed melt snow, but at great expense. You're transferring heat across a large temperature differential, which is one of the classic ways to throw away energy: it creates lots of entropy, little USEFUL heat addition. You do melt some snow -- and then you spend loads of energy turning that liquid water into steam, as well as heating the surrounding air which immediately rises away from the ground because it's buoyant.
You're better off to use something just a LITTLE warmer than snow -- you transfer heat across a small temperature differential and come much closer to a thermodynamically reversible process. Some steam locomotives used to be fitted with multiple steam jets on the front that could be used to clear tracks by a combination of blowing and melting.
rj
Main reason which is self evident : salt work EVEN AT NIGHT. Meaning you can spray it at 4/5 in the morning and have citizen a ice free street.ASh not so much. You have to wait for sunrise and it freeze again at night.
In addition in no particular order :
1) salt will stop ice reforming so quick, and particularly surface ice (ground below zero, water on it => surface ice nasty to walk on). You don't sprinkle salt on snow to melt it, you sprinkle it on ice/compacted snow before it become ice. The salt is to avoid sliding on foot or on car.
2) Ash make everything with a dirty muck , which the city has to remove, particularly it could block canalizations.
3) carbon rich ash is black. Normal ash is gray , light gray.
I am sure there are a lot of other reason. I think the above are waaaaay enough to stamp your idea as "not so good"
You do realize that heating up a road surface requires an ungodly amount of energy, right? That's why only rich bastards and megacorporations can afford such things. To say such astronomical costs could be covered by taxes is like saying we could all be chauffeured around in Bentleys on taxes.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The laws of thermodynamics tell us whether the snow will melt, but not how quickly it will melt. The rate is dictated by kinetics, not thermodynamics.
Chicago probably goes a bit overboard because of our history with snowstorms (the short version: the story goes a mayor lost reelection because of how he was perceived to handle a snowstorm), but we had close to FIVE HUNDRED vehicles deployed in this storm.
It was something like 350 special-purpose trucks, the ones with the huge plows on the front, the dumptruck full of road salt and the salt spreader at the back (which damages roads other vehicles, by the way) and an additional 150 or so garbage trucks that can be fit with plows. And of course, at least one crew member (driver) per vehicle. Presumably, the majority of these people have other responsibilities within government -- meaning that if this snow control business isn't pure overtime, it's at least causing quite a bit of it. Then there's maintenance of this massive fleet of vehicles, the purchase and storage of huge mountains of this road salt, increased police patrols, and of course general loss of tax revenue from lost economic opportunities when people decide the roads are too dangerous to go out and buy anything (or even open their businesses).
It's well beyond my abilities to calculate how much all of this costs on an average year, much less how much it might be able to be reduced if we had some sort of road heating system in place or what such a system would cost -- but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that long-term, such a system could actually save money, at least in some places in the country. It should at least be explored, and snarky comments like yours that pretend to know it's not worthwhile without any such information helps nobody. Then again judging by your username and the recentness of your registration, I'm fairly certain you had no intentions of actually being a productive poster when you registered.
So, federal law prevents them from dumping the "contaminated" snow in the Charles river, or the harbor. What I would like to know is this: where do they think all that snow is going to go if it melts on its own?
Proverbs 21:19
He needs to make sure these "Engineers" are properly licensed.
Or else he would have had to write another letter.
When the snow melts in the springtime, the meltwater trickles runs through the grass, soaks through the ground, goes through wetlands, etc... all of which removes contaminants from it. When you dump the snow straight into the harbor, none of that happens - all the pollutants go straight into the ocean.
And... what warmed the oceans?
While it sounds funny, when I actually read it my thought was "he seems like a reasonable man."
He saw something happening, used his past observations to predict a likely outcome if no action was taken, realized this outcome would be dangerous to the people he was sworn to protect, and then asked people who are smarter than he is what he should do to prevent or reduce the bad outcome.
He gave them some ideas that he had come up with and asked if they were worth investigating. While they may have been silly ideas, at least he had the common sense to ask smarter people for help figuring out what to do instead of just pursuing whatever boneheaded idea he came up with. Does anyone remember the recent "possums released into NYC to deal with rats" story?
I think we could use more public officials like this guy.
FEMA has snow melting flame throwers. The problem is that FEMA sent them all to New Orleans to prevent another Katrina-like under-response.
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
Because the water that goes into the sewer system does not go straight into the river or the harbor. It first goes to a water treatment facility and then flows into the harbor. http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/03sewer/html/sewditp.htm
This a new low, even for slashdot. I know stories are late here, but 1948???
Next on slashdot, an article about how scientists are developing this interesting electronic device called a "computer" and how it will revolutionize the world.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Pile snow on trucks and move it to a larger lawn. That's what we do in my home town when snow is 2 meters deep.
And yes, it's actually cheaper than melting it. I've calculated it once just for fun.
Heard about a guy who used primacord to shovel his sidewalks.
1) Run a length down the middle of the sidewalk.
2) Set it off. WHACK!
3) Result: Clean walk and two piles of snow beside it.
4) Profit?
5) Try to explain this to the BATF(E) and DHS.
6) Collect a free Club Gitmo T-shirt.
Haven't tried this myself yet, so can't tell you whether/how well it actually works.
Probably won't,either, since the Supreme Court seems unlikely to extend District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago to explosive technology in what remains of my lifetime.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Snow or Flood.
I have been investigating ways to avoid shoveling, or buy a snow-blower. I have no garage to store it in and my driveway is below grade, so hauling that thing to and from the driveway is at the least inconvenient. And that is without worrying about some drive-by theft if I try leaving it in the driveway over the winter. After looking at the various alternatives, electric cables, hot water from a tank or geo-thermal pumped through plastic pipes, I ran across infra-red heat lamps being used for this. Looks interesting. I have no clue practical this is, or how much it will cost to install yet. But since I need to move and rebuild my driveway anyway, I figure I will ask some contractors for estimates on how much these would add to the cost. Or cost to run for that matter. Here is one link to a somewhat biased source: http://www.infraredheaters.com/snowice.htm#3.0%20%20Overhead
But where does the energy in the oceans come from?
mostly the sun.
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