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God I hate road salt. My poor poor Jeeps! Perhaps this will spur a shift towards alternatives? I've heard beet juice of all things is effective but I have no clue if its economical.


Perhaps corn syrup would work too. If we take it out of our foods, then we can solve two problems at once.


My guess is that you'd run into problems with mold or bacterial growth pretty quickly if you spread glucose syrup on roads.


Not too mention animals eating the syrup from the roads.


There is already a problem in many places with deers licking salt of the road surface.


Just add a bitter chemical, like they do with the coating of medicine so that children don't think pills are candy.


They already put corn syrup on the roads, mixed with salt.


Then we wouldn't be able to eat it off of the roads.


Chicago has used a kind of beet brine for deicing. It's beet juice mixed with salt. It means you can use less salt, the sugar makes it more effective in colder temps, and helps it stick to the road so there's less waste. Also makes the road look red.


In some areas they used to use cinders from the coal plants. They are black and soak up more heat from the sun and contain salts.





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