Quote.
Yes a runway is a fair spread of Tarmac, but to look at it another way it's only about the same as 18 soccer pitches. And those of us who pay domestic heating bills are not in the business of making money from our houses. If you look at it from yet another angle consider the loss of revenue if our Refinerys and Chemical plants didn't spend millions on keeping pipes and vessels up to temperature so that the "product" is free to flow in cold weather and thereby keeping the revenue coming in. At the end of the day the technology is there in other industries, it's just a case of someone doing the sums and adapting that existing technology to Runway Heating. It is possible and to say "It would be too expensive" without a proper feasibility study is to be defeatist.
I too rest my case !!. end quote.
Heathrows northern runway covers 29 times the surface area of Arsenals football pitch. And there are two, although the southern is slightly smaller at 25 times the size.
The comparison with refineries is flawed. Without steam heated pipes, the product wont flow, all year round. Not the case at aiports.
And heated runways wont help if the exits, taxi ways and stands are all frozen.
Case rested.