How useless. A machine that turns snow into ice. Big deal.
We have a lake that poops out snow and it turns into a block of ice every time it rains and freezes again.
I’m not impressed.
At this size, it doesn't seem very useful. On the other hand, a device which could quickly turn large quantities of snow into transportable bricks of solid ice without using too much energy could be very useful for things like airports.
Ordinarily you would be right , but it is not useless. The Japanese are extremely energy conscious. They spend millions on making ice for their highly active fish markets. Japans major protein source is fish from around the shores of Japan, especially bonito Tuna.
The Japnese are real sticklers for freshness in their fish, and it is highly iced without being frozen a lot of the time.
Instead of making ice and consuming the fuel to do so, they will simply stack these bricks in cold storage and use them to save on ice production.
The guy who made this machine will be an instant millionaire.
Snow: Space-filling stuff that blocks roads. Ice bricks: Less space, more useful. Ice bricks can be used to cool perishables, or can even be efficiently packed and moved to places that need water. Or stacked to build igloos, or compressed together as a medium for ice scuplture.
If they can make it affordable, it's more utilitarian than a conventional snowplow, snow shovel, snow blower or salt truck, and I'm told those things sell pretty well.
We have a lake that poops out snow and it turns into a block of ice every time it rains and freezes again.
Well, there you go -- instead of building these little robots, all we need to do is create a lake, generate snow, make it rain, and then make it freeze. Good plan.