Slippery Slope: Inventor Wages War on Rock Salt

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Slippery Slope: Inventor Wages War on Rock Salt
Steve Bytnar Dreams Of Chemical-Free Roads; Ingredients Stay Secret
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY
February 25, 2008; Page A1

GREELEY, Colo. -- In his lab near the snow-covered Rocky Mountains, Steve Bytnar is plotting to topple a winter mainstay: rock salt. Pointing to a line of glass jars containing a colorful array of liquids, Mr. Bytnar declares: "I have a vision that I can de-ice a road without any chemicals." While that is a distant goal, his attack on rock salt is well under way. "We get all our customers by teaching them how to use less" salt, he says.

Spreading rock salt has been the standard response to icy American highways since World War II. Salt is plentiful, and it's cheap. But dumping tons of rock salt has drawbacks. The salt speeds up the corrosion of bridges and cars, chokes vegetation and isn't very effective below 17 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, a campaign to find substitutes is gaining traction. Mr. Bytnar, a tireless tinkerer who says he is an "obsessive-compulsive" lab rat, is at the forefront of a growing movement to overthrow salt's long reign. In its place, he and other researchers are producing liquid anti-icers containing molasses, corn syrup, beet juice -- and other, mystery ingredients -- to keep highways safe for winter driving.

Akron and many other Ohio towns are trying "GeoMelt," a gooey liquid derived from sugar beets that is often mixed with salt brine. New Jersey is now treating its busiest thoroughfares -- the turnpike and the Garden State Parkway -- with brines enhanced by "Magic Minus Zero," a liquid anti-icing agent containing residue from rum distillation. "We use half as much as we used to," says Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the state's turnpike authority. Transportation departments in Colorado are dousing roads with "MeltDown Apex," a cloudy whitish liquid created by Mr. Bytnar. Highway officials don't know exactly what's in the concoction. Mr. Bytnar says it's a secret. "They're not going to tell you that unless you have a court order," says Steve Krause, a street division manager in Aurora, Colo., who swears by Apex at the first sign of snow.

(snip)

Liquid anti-icers are more expensive up front. But Mr. Bytnar and many of his customers say cost savings accrue eventually as less salt and sand are applied. This argument has been bolstered lately by an increase in salt prices spurred by a particularly snowy winter across the northern half of the country. The shift away from sodium chloride began in the 1980s, when companies and towns started experimenting with magnesium chloride and other compounds that melt ice at lower temperatures than sodium chloride does, and had fewer environmental drawbacks. The use of renewable organic matter like corn syrup started in the 1990s. Industry lore has it that a worker taking a smoke break outside a Hungarian factory noticed that pond water mixed with a syrupy byproduct of alcohol distillation wasn't freezing in subzero temperatures. Soon, American chemists began combining magnesium chloride with liquid residues from plant and vegetable processing to test their de-icing powers.

(snip)

However, as with many environmentally friendly alternatives to old technology, Mr. Bytnar's potions had some drawbacks. For one thing, they were expensive. For another, they smelled. One of the first times Denver sprayed Ice Ban, he says, the expected snow never came, leaving the streets coated in a stinky goo. "The city people thought they'd moved out to the farm," Mr. Bytnar recalls. But city officials also saw that it worked... Today, liquid anti-icing is de rigueur in Colorado. Early one morning recently, as a snowstorm began and temperatures fell into the teens, crews at Denver International Airport splashed runways with potassium acetate, a nonchloride de-icer that can be prohibitively expensive for many localities. Mr. Krause's trucks sprayed Mr. Bytnar's MeltDown Apex all over Aurora. During the snowy morning rush, car tires kicked up rooster tails of water even though the outdoor temperature was 20 degrees.

(snip)



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[Gore1FL]

1. My HS chemistry teacher (circa 1982)

stated that they should use alum. The higher cost is more than made up for by the savings on road deterioriation due to salt application.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Well, thank goodness these liquids don't contain any "chemicals".

:sarcasm:
Hell, water is a chemical. Air is made up of chemicals. The label 'chemical' doesn't say anything about whether it's natural or harmful.

(CAUTION: Friendly fire -- for your own safety, please keep your head down. Journo's fault, not the poster's.)

[phantom power]

4. I had the same reaction. I was thinking "he's going to heat the road?"

[izquierdista]

3. Actually, dirt is pretty good

A little granular particulate to increase traction. It always seemed odd to me that a compound toxic to plants and corrosive to metals would be the choice, just because it was cheap. Penny wise and pound foolish, both to cars and highways. If pelletized fertilizer was used, the runoff could help plant growth and stabilize grade cuts which are in danger of washing away.

[Viking12]

5. Due to heavy snows, salt supplies have dwindled here in WI

Salt is nearly impossible to obtain at the moment and the prices are sky high so several communities have adopted the beet juice de-icer as a supplement to get through the winter. It's a great way to pilot test the product -- from the news reports I've seen, many of those communites plan to go 100% beet juice in the future.

[happyslug]

6. In my home town they have Adopted the SSRS System

This system is environmentally friendly and cost efficient. No know environmental hazards are known in using SSRS. Compared even to rock slat the SSRS is even cheaper. Now officially the town refuse to say they snow removal policy is now the SSRS, but as I see my city at work all I see is indication of the SSRS system. I would go into details, but the system is confidential and some people complain when cities adopt the SSRS, so the adoption of the system is almost never done officially. It is implemented by the municipality and you see the result.

Ah, before I forget the SSRS stands for the Solar Snow Removal System.... The sun will melt it anyway so why do anything about it?