Canada

I'd be really curious to know how long and cold of a winter they are talking about.

For example: would this work in Saskatchewan or Manitoba where the snow starts falling near Halloween and isn't gone until May? With regular temperatures below -20C and severe cold snaps below -40C?

We're part of Canada too.

I work in road construction. I could maybe see this being feasible in highly localized critical areas, but this kind of road method can't become commonplace. Canada just has too many roads.

Maybe a bridge along the DVP in Toronto that always has bad ice accidents, or a major bike arterial path, but the numbers don't make sense for anywhere else. If a road/bridge is truly that bad for accidents, the Municipality is likely cheaper to redesign the approach/descent angles or change the speed limit rather than try this.

I note they don't talk about how much road a 50 or 60 ton system would be able to serve, compared to the Vancouver budget, or what maintenance costs are on a system that size. The article they link to discussing the system costs is specifically looking at the costs of a BTES system for buildings/complexs.

Imagine driving along a Canadian road soon after a snowfall — but there's no snow or ice on the pavement. The salt trucks and plows have not passed. Yet the roads are already clear. The technology exists to make this possible, with a system hidden beneath the pavement.

"[The] system captures solar heat during the summer months and stores it underground. Then, when winter arrives, the stored heat is transferred through pipes beneath the road surface, warming the pavement and preventing ice formation — in essence, a solar powered underfloor heating system," engineering researchers explain.

Today in The Conversation Canada, Mohammadamin Ahmadfard and Seth Dworkin from Toronto Metropolitan University discuss how this technology, known as Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES), could be a solution to Canada’s winter woes.

"Canada has the potential to lead the way by adopting BTES systems on its most treacherous roads, steep inclines and vulnerable bridges," they write.

Solar freakin' roadways!