Engineering360: "Heated runways could end airport snow delays"

The high heat of fusion of water makes this an expensive solution in terms of the energy requirements.

I have wondered if airports with their sizeable expanse of open spaces might be able to employ solar thermal panels to continually heat the runways and taxiways with piping of thermal fluid. Of course when the storm blows in and there is little sunlight, that's not a huge help unless sheer mass of the pavements can store enough heat to carry through a typical storm?

But as stated in the article, now we have yet another maintenance activity and energy expense to run the pumps which will have to run during the summer months to avoid excessive temperatures due to stagnation of the fluid or drain the panels in the late spring and re-start the heating in the early fall. Not to mention the engineering required to ensure that the tubing embedded with the concrete does not reduce the strength of the pavement below required specifications. No easy answers.

A small scale implementation could always be tested on a non-critical taxiway to evaluate the efficacy of this concept.

Why not simply use old out of service planes with engines fitted with deflectors to deflect the exhaust gases and run them down the runways and parking areas and use the heat from the engines to melt the snow !
Only use them when needed. Just my 2cents worth !

Here is an implementation of that idea for the rails. Although I'd be concerned about blowing out the ballast between the ties.