Sushil's Review: South Puget Sound Community College - Olympia

"But I'm betting (hoping, maybe pyirang?) that there are other more environment-friendly water-soluble chemicals which lower the freezing point of H20 below 32 degrees F like Sodium Chloride does. Or, if not, can we "invent" new ones to do that job, maybe even organic products from our sister plants?[Skip the "heat up" paragraph...]With our science and technology, we MUST be able to discover/invent environmentally sound ways to melt ice and snow off of our roads, streets, roofs, powerlines, and maybe even at-risk trees!"Jo reports that on a recent KUOW show, probably The Conversation at 1-2PM on Tuesday or Wednesday, there was a long discussion of a new "salt-substitute" product that is at least "advertised" as being "green, environment-friendly" and that many call-ins reported that was working well on their walks, driveways, stairs, and maybe even roofs? Jo can't recall the exact name, and the KUOW website Search function can't find anything in The Conversation this week about Transportation or Environment, but if we call host Ross Reynolds tomorrow he'll probably recall the needed details. Jo also reports that other call-ins expressed doubts that the Environmental Impact of this product had been sufficiently assessed that SDOT could start using it as a salt substitute. Unfortunately, I was too preoccupied with email or postings on this site, or too engrossed in singalongs with "Lunch with Folks" on KUOW's NPR sister station KBCS 91.3 FM "35 Years A World of Music and Ideas"to have joined The Conversation this time.So, I/we are hoping that other fans and Comment Posters for this blog heard the show, recall more details, and may even have personal experiences with this "mystery product" to share with Cliff and us. Can we all clean off our walks, stairs and driveways with an environmentally safe salt substitute? And, should we urge SDOT to follow suit, and other municipalities like our Lake Forest Park to REPLACE "salt and sand" by a better mix?HELP, ASAP!Another note on snow impact:(1)the snow on our Puget Sound Solar Photovoltaic panels has zeroed out solar KWH and DC/AC Inverter on-times for 3 of the last 5 days, with at most 2 hours on and .75KWH the other 2 days, and(2)the similar effect on our Solar Water Heater panels has them reporting at most 35 degrees on our roof in mid-day, now toggling between 31 and 32, in agreement with our outdoor thermometer 8' high on the North wall in our garden shed, 4' below the N roofline (with only a tiny SE wind-vent 10' away, so the shed usually reports 1-2 degrees lower than our Subaru Outback station wagon 30' lower on the street does before it warms up. Also, the shed's South-slope black composite shingle roof is usually shaded out by our 90' high, 30' wide at base Red Cedar SSW and Japanese Cherry WSW, with no leaves but lots of snow this week, so the shed gets little solar heating, and that mainly heats air near the roof 4' above the thermometer.)We'd guess that about half of our snow pack has now melted, but with rain and now sub-freezing temps, the rest is rock-hard, so our Welsh corgi doggie can stand on top of it without breaking through, will break his teeth if he tries to gobble some down as he loves to do, and this will spoil the fun when he tries to roll in it!(I wouldn't be surprised to see an Alaskan huskie, or even a UW Husky, act like that, but our daughter's visiting corgi is like Queen Elizabeth's pets and hardly an Arctic Snowdog beastie! What about WSU Cougars?)Again, this hasn't posted for 10 minutes after my first try, maybe because I had it all highlighted to copy to my Word Comment Archive, so I'm going to retry, since last time I only saw the second copy posted (Jo claims she saw 2, so maybe someone else deleted the first one?)