Asphalt used on road surfaces are byproducts from fossil fuel. With the ultimate goal of eliminating the use of fossil fuel to combat climate change, are there any good alternatives for road surfaces? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a viable replacement of asphalt in the works, or even a plan to replace it in any environmental discussions before. At least, not enough for me to notice.

Extented question would be: what are some products derived from fossil fuel that are used in everyday life, but still lack viable alternatives you don’t see enough discussions about?

  • @SuperIceEnglish
    52•1 year ago

    Bioasphalts can be made from all sorts of non-petroleun renewable resources, including food wastes and sewerage effluent: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioasphalt

    I think the main challenge now will be determining the ideal mix of ingredients that best suit the purpose of the asphalt.

      • @[email protected]English
        21•1 year ago

        Also another factor is heavy vehicles. I don’t have the article or video, but I remember hearing that a majority of road damage comes from heavy vehicles. I believe the video was also comparing roads to Rome roads where it wasn’t that they were built better (although volcanic ash did help) it’s that horses and people are way less heavy than the 3,000+lb vehicles we have going almost 24/7.

        Less road damage would mean less containments/pollution and less need for repair. So the future might be seeing more public transit and more rail transit for materials/products which would mean wherever we need to add more road or re do sections we would replace it with the greener option or potential normal asphalt since it wouldn’t need to be touched for another 20,30,40+ years.

        • @fubo
          24•1 year ago

          that a majority of road damage comes from heavy vehicles

          Specifically, wear and tear on the road surface scales with the fourth power of vehicle weight.

          As a worked example, this means that if we compare a 3-ton cargo van and a 1½-ton sedan, the cargo van weighs twice as much as the sedan, but it does sixteen times as much damage to the road.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

          • @[email protected]
            4•1 year ago

            Axle load, actually. In theory a 1.5-ton car with two axles and a 3-ton truck with four equally loaded axles would cause the same amount of damage. A 1-ton unicycle would cause more damage than the truck.

            Note, though, that this is a rule of thumb. A 50-ton tank is still a 50-ton tank even if you manage to make it have fifty tiny axles. But for fairly average motor vehicles under fairly average conditions it’s close enough to be useful for planning.

              • @[email protected]
                3•1 year ago

                It could be, but I wouldn’t assume that it is.

                I remember when calculating bridge wear, we were discussing the truck arriving on the bridge in terms of impact. It could be the damage somehow comes mostly from the first wheels to encounter the material.

            • @[email protected]
              4•1 year ago

              As with all equations in civil engineering, it’s not really derived from physics so much as it’s the curve that best fits the data.

              It’s kind of interesting in that way, because it’s an implicit declaration that when shit gets really heavy (pun intended), we trust empirical observations more than we trust our own theories of how things work.

              I think it’s a great example of coming back to the roots of science in measurement, as a practical humility we must take seriously because everything civil engineers do is high stakes.