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?
Trains
I mean, I’m all for more public transportation (seriously, wtf America?). But in reality, there is still a need for public roads for things like buses in places where subway stations aren’t viable, and also for logistics (construction materials, mail, Amazon deliveries, your Uber eats, etc.)
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.
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.
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.
