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| Science & Technology |
| Burning Deceased Baby Boomers Could Generate Electricity |
| 2011-12-04 |
| In Durham, England, corpses will soon be used to generate electricity. A crematorium is installing turbines in its burners that will convert waste heat from the combustion of each corpse into as much as 150 kilowatt-hours of juice — enough to power 1,500 televisions for an hour. The facility plans to sell the electricity to local power companies. Some might find this concept creepy. Others might be pleased to learn that the process "makes cremation much greener by utilizing its by-products," in the words of cremation engineer Steve Looker, owner and chief executive officer of the Florida-based company B&L Cremation Systems, which is unaffiliated with the Durham enterprise. In Europe, tightening regulations on crematorium emissions, coupled with the high price of energy, will lead more and more facilities to go the way of Durham in the future, Looker said. Will crematories in the United States follow suit? According to Looker, whose company is currently testing different methods of utilizing cremation waste heat, the expensive turbine systems being installed in Durham are not yet economically viable for crematories here. "In the U.S., most crematories don't have enough through-put," he told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. "Cremation in some parts of Europe is over 90 percent, but it is not over 50 percent yet here." That is, less than half of Americans opt for cremation. Most are buried. |
| Posted by:Beavis |