Laying asphalt is a hot business. The oil, sand and rock mixture is too thick to lay without heating it to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The amount of energy spent on the actual act of constructing a road from asphalt is astounding — almost as astounding as how quickly asphalt has gone from a cheap construction material to a very expensive one.

Just a few years ago, asphalt sold from #35 a ton. Today, the cost is $80 and rising. Rising petroleum prices are to blame: asphalt is 5 percent oil. Asphalt is recyclable, but there’s a constant need for both new roads and repair to existing roads.

Hussain Bahia has a solution, though. Bahia, a civil engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, thinks it’s time for the U.S. to look other countries. Outside of the U.S., asphalt doesn’t necessarily require heat to lay. Instead, many other countries use cold mixes, which require approximately seven times less energy to lay. The problem is that there are standards and procedures for hot mixes in the U.S. — guidelines that allow engineers to predict how a given road will perform. There’s no such data in on cold-mixes.

Bahia’s goal is to fix that, through his work at the Asphalt Research Consortium. He plans to develop the necessary quality control tests and other standards to make cold mixes a reasonable alternative for U.S. road builders. Bahia has even planned experiments beyond the necessary standards — using more recycled materials and polymers, for instance.

Photo — Sidereal