Quote Originally Posted by nova_robotics View Post
The amount of energy it takes to melt ice is crazy. This would be very expensive to run. Usually they just pick an unused corner of the parking lot and pile everything up there until the weather warms up.

If we assume around 80% efficiency of the diesel burner, then 1 litre of diesel is going to melt around 90 kg of snow. Lets say that loader is dumping 2 tonnes of snow with each bucket. That's 22 litres of diesel FOR EACH BUCKET LOAD.
If they simply must remove the snow rather than pile it up and wait for it to melt, it would be more cost effective in the long run to Locate a suitable basin area excavate it out and construct an earthen dam creating a lake truck the snow and dump it there when it melts they still have the water.
Other wise considering which cities are most likely to be trying to melt snow are located, they should just all go vacation in Venezuela for the winter