Snowmaking: The Environmental Impacts of the Ski Industry's Saving Grace

Well done Noah!

Great documentary -- well researched! I enjoyed watching this. - Mia

Very good documentary. Well done, sir.

This make me so sad, to know that Mother Earth is struggling to keep us safe. By polluting the oceans, deforestation, flash fashion industry, destroying wild life and much more. It will be hard for our children and grandchildren to be able to live on this earth.

Cool video but as a snowmaker with experience across the world I’d like to point out some corrections
-Snowmaking snow isn’t artificial aka fake it’s just man made, we can add natural preservatives (one is a natural algae) to make it easier for snow crystals to form in more marginal weather but it’s still real. Snowmaking snow is denser pre compacted snow form therefore more bang for your buck when building runs where as natural snow it can be like 20cm of natural snow equates to 1cm of packed snow.
the air compressors that supply the vast amounts of air required are not diesel powered, they’re electric just like the water pumps. Some resorts use diesel generators to power fan guns in remote areas of the resort. But the big main compressors aren’t diesel powered too much cost which leads me to the next point
- snowmaking is an incredible resource requiring system the cost incurred when starting up all the pumps and compressors is a lot so once they’re running we try to avoid complete shut downs as much as possible and yes the industry makes continual improvements and yes techno alpin claims they can do that but really any modern fan gun or even stick can do make snow in warm temperatures if the the humidity is low enough, that’s determined by the relative air temperature and humidity resulting in a welt bulb temperature, so you can make snow in above freezing temperatures if the humidity is incredibly low.
- resorts employ snowmaking as both a season insurance against poor snowfall but also man made snow is better base and lasts longer ensuring an earlier start and later finish to the season
- the process of actually making the snow is using high pressure water and air like you said and the water and air is mixed is either done internally (mixed in the pipes before being pushed out) or external mixture through nozzles on a gun but on the external mixture guns (which is most modern gun) the use a mixture of regular nozzles and nucleator nozzles. The nucleator nozzles break the water molecules down to some microscopic size and they freeze quickly and then the water from the regular nozzles collide and freeze together making the man made snow

But I still loved the video just some more information for you

great !!

Does the water saving matter? They have reservoirs on the mountains for the fake snow and when it all melts it’s not lost, it just joins the river 🤔

In the future please don't use music. Just narrate. That music was at times loud enough to not hear what he was saying. Other than that, great video. Thanks.