ИСТИНА

Recently there is a new way of producing natural like artificial snow. The dendrite generator (DG) simulates processes that take place in a natural cloud inside a container and produces natural-like dendritic technical snow with density 80 –200 kg per m³ as compared to 450 kg m³ technical snow produced by conventional techniques. While the technological development is under way, we discuss here, why the new quality of manmade snow is needed. We will consider this from three categories, range of use, environment, economy, and resource saving. Range of use: DG snow is produced in a container and not in the open environment. Due to this it is possible to produce snow at temperatures above 0°C. Consequently we should be able to gain more hours for snow production and therefore in the lower altitudes the efficiency increase is likely to be the highest. Environment: As the DG snow is like natural snow it will have less impact on the natural environment than the heavy conventional artificial snow. It also reflects more radiation and behave more like natural snow in terms of the energy balance of the soil surface. Therefore, it should have less impact on the natural environment than the “frozen water” produced with existing conventional snow making devices. Economy: DG snow could either complement or substitute currently established artificial snow making. Today heavy weight conventionally produced snow is favoured for the preparation of ski runs. DG snow allows a sophisticated use of classified qualities of technically produced snow. New tourist products – like skiing in fluffy snow – become possible. Gradually, DG snow will overtake larger shares of the market and the ways of preparing ski runs may be changed in the future. Where the light fluffy snow is acceptable larger areas could be covered with the same amount of water consumption. Resource aspects: In conventional snow production, a considerable amount of water used fro snow production, up to 30%, is lost due to evaporation into the environment. Alternatively, when using the DG, almost all the water used is transformed to snow by the snow-making device. Compressing the DG-produced snow the same way as it is done with the natural snow allow obtaining the snow cover of any density, though further water savings relative to the conventional snow making are possible when the compression is made only when it is required. Not only do the water savings reduce the energy requirements to transport the water to the snow making devices but the savings in water alone can have significant advantages. http://ccca.boku.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/P29_breiling_07_2014_vc1_70x100.pdf