UK to burn dead bodies to heat swimming pool

@Blackhebrew2 said:

As am I Jason, as am I. But surely because you are agreeing to be cremated then you should be okay with the heat created being used for energy, the process much the same but with energy being created?

That's not a foregone conclusion for everyone who wishes to be cremated. If the choice isn't there, then I don't agree with it.

Was a bit weirded out, but yeah, seems efficient.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@RollingZeppelin said:

All that's happening is recovering some energy used to heat the furnace. The bodies would be cremated anyway, now it's just contributing more power to the grid. This is just making the furnace more efficient, nothing else has changed. It's not like they're making dead body fuelled power plants.

With our growing population and power needs we need all of our systems to become as efficient as possible in order to lower our ecological footprint and make our societies sustainable. Kudos to the engineers that realised this opportunity.

I think it's the fact that it would only be functioning while there's a body being disposed of that creeps me out. 
"Hey, pool's warm! Must be grandma!"

You know you're eating and breathing dead people right? 

Ummm...no. Cemeteries have some pretty strict legal requirements to avoid just this sort of thing. Crematoriums also have scrubbers in the chimney for the same.

@Fajita_Jim said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@RollingZeppelin said:

All that's happening is recovering some energy used to heat the furnace. The bodies would be cremated anyway, now it's just contributing more power to the grid. This is just making the furnace more efficient, nothing else has changed. It's not like they're making dead body fuelled power plants.

With our growing population and power needs we need all of our systems to become as efficient as possible in order to lower our ecological footprint and make our societies sustainable. Kudos to the engineers that realised this opportunity.

I think it's the fact that it would only be functioning while there's a body being disposed of that creeps me out.
"Hey, pool's warm! Must be grandma!"

You know you're eating and breathing dead people right?

Ummm...no. Cemeteries have some pretty strict legal requirements to avoid just this sort of thing. Crematoriums also have scrubbers in the chimney for the same.

Scrubbers can't remove 100% of the particles, and nutrients from decomposing bodies travel down into the soil and eventually wind up fertilising the nearest farmland, so yeah, @SeriouslyNow is completely right.

@Fajita_Jim said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@RollingZeppelin said:

All that's happening is recovering some energy used to heat the furnace. The bodies would be cremated anyway, now it's just contributing more power to the grid. This is just making the furnace more efficient, nothing else has changed. It's not like they're making dead body fuelled power plants.

With our growing population and power needs we need all of our systems to become as efficient as possible in order to lower our ecological footprint and make our societies sustainable. Kudos to the engineers that realised this opportunity.

I think it's the fact that it would only be functioning while there's a body being disposed of that creeps me out. 
"Hey, pool's warm! Must be grandma!"

You know you're eating and breathing dead people right? 

Ummm...no. Cemeteries have some pretty strict legal requirements to avoid just this sort of thing. Crematoriums also have scrubbers in the chimney for the same.

Hair follicles, skin particles, pieces of nail - and that's dead tissue from living human beings which we're all practically swimming in.  Then there's poo particles and the decomposed flesh of dead bodies which is passing through your system on a daily basis and that's not even considering the microscopic stuff as well.  

@MattyFTM said:

The only "WTF" thing about that article is the sensationalist headline and the terrible reporting. No, they're not "burning dead bodies to heat a swimming pool" they're putting the heat energy released by a crematorium to some use. That heat energy exists. That's a fact. It's either going to be released into the atmosphere, or it can be put to some use. It's a fantastic idea. It doesn't affect the experience at the crematorium and it saves energy. It's brilliant. Every crematorium should do it. I can't believe in 2012 we're only just starting to do this, it should have been done years ago.

May as well have locked the thread after you said this. You nailed it. :P

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@RollingZeppelin said:

All that's happening is recovering some energy used to heat the furnace. The bodies would be cremated anyway, now it's just contributing more power to the grid. This is just making the furnace more efficient, nothing else has changed. It's not like they're making dead body fuelled power plants.

With our growing population and power needs we need all of our systems to become as efficient as possible in order to lower our ecological footprint and make our societies sustainable. Kudos to the engineers that realised this opportunity.

I think it's the fact that it would only be functioning while there's a body being disposed of that creeps me out. 
"Hey, pool's warm! Must be grandma!"

You know you're eating and breathing dead people right? 

Ummm...no. Cemeteries have some pretty strict legal requirements to avoid just this sort of thing. Crematoriums also have scrubbers in the chimney for the same.

Hair follicles, skin particles, pieces of nail - and that's dead tissue from living human beings which we're all practically swimming in.  Then there's poo particles and the decomposed flesh of dead bodies which is passing through your system on a daily basis and that's not even considering the microscopic stuff as well.  

But those aren't from dead people. You said 'dead people'. I know for a fact that dust in a house is largely from its human occupants, but they're probably not dead.

@Fajita_Jim said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

You know you're eating and breathing dead people right? 

Ummm...no. Cemeteries have some pretty strict legal requirements to avoid just this sort of thing. Crematoriums also have scrubbers in the chimney for the same.

Hair follicles, skin particles, pieces of nail - and that's dead tissue from living human beings which we're all practically swimming in.  Then there's poo particles and the decomposed flesh of dead bodies which is passing through your system on a daily basis and that's not even considering the microscopic stuff as well.  

But those aren't from dead people. You said 'dead people'. I know for a fact that dust in a house is largely from its human occupants, but they're probably not dead.

You conveniently ignored the last sentence.  Dead people.  People who have passed this reality and gone onto the next.  You're eating and breathing their particles.  Every day.  Most people are buried and the vast majority of our food comes from the earth or is augmented by food which comes from the earth.   Dead flesh is dead flesh and you're eating it often.

@Fajita_Jim: I skimmed through that article, it does go into detail about the dangers of pathogenic bacteria contaminating the water supply, but there's no section that talks about the legal requirements of zoning farmland or the location of cemeteries. Also, you didn't address my point about the scrubbers.

Anyway, this is completely tangent to the topic, of which I can tell I'm not going to convince you that there's nothing wrong here. You and Jason can continue to be irrational about the subject. Doesn't affect me or even whether this retrofitting of generators on these furnaces will continue or not.

efficient.

sure why not use a free resource. and its not even disrespecting the dead person or family members since nothing changes

This is the sort of thing that sounds atrocious at first, but when you actually stop and think about it -- well, why the hell not? The bodies will be burned one way or the other, and allowing the heat to be used for energy doesn't desecrate the remains in any way that I'm aware of.

From the title I thought they were literally burning dead bodies beneath swimming pools. But seriously, OP is overeating. The body is going to be burnt, so why not use some of that heat energy to at least make some power for us to use? So what if turbines are being fitted into crematoriums, the bodies are still being burnt in the way the relatives want, so why not make use of waste energy? It's not like the bodies are being churned up and horribly mutilated by these turbines.

@Fajita_Jim: I skimmed through that article, it does go into detail about the dangers of pathogenic bacteria contaminating the water supply, but there's no section that talks about the legal requirements of zoning farmland or the location of cemeteries. Also, you didn't address my point about the scrubbers.

Anyway, this is completely tangent to the topic, of which I can tell I'm not going to convince you that there's nothing wrong here. You and Jason can continue to be irrational about the subject. Doesn't affect me or even whether this retrofitting of generators on these furnaces will continue or not.

Shite news website. Sensationalist story.

It's about time we started recycling people as fuel. I for one fully support this.

Soylent Green is people! Seriously though, I do think this is a pretty good idea.

@Fajita_Jim said:

@RollingZeppelin said:

@Fajita_Jim: I skimmed through that article, it does go into detail about the dangers of pathogenic bacteria contaminating the water supply, but there's no section that talks about the legal requirements of zoning farmland or the location of cemeteries. Also, you didn't address my point about the scrubbers.

Anyway, this is completely tangent to the topic, of which I can tell I'm not going to convince you that there's nothing wrong here. You and Jason can continue to be irrational about the subject. Doesn't affect me or even whether this retrofitting of generators on these furnaces will continue or not.

The article I listed wasn't to show you the laws, it was to show you WHY the laws exist. As in; "Yes, we know, and have known, that dead bodies contaminate the ground." The article also details that this contamination is TOXIC. So the point of that post was this: Being toxic, and being known to be toxic, do you really think people would knowingly farm where such toxins can contaminate foodstuffs? Well, of course not. Therefore, one can safely assume we do NOT have 'dead people' in our food. Seriouslynow is probably going to come about and say something like "But that dust mite poop was once human flesh" so I'm going to preempt him: 'was once' being the operative phrase. If you want to get that specific about things, I'm a star. The food I just ate is a star. The floor I'm walking on is a star. We live on a star. The toilet I took a shit in this morning is a star and so is the shit I left in it. Reason being, everything you see around you with the exception of hydrogen ('see' being used in the metaphorical sense of course, preempting that as well) was formed in the heart of a star.

Farming and cemeteries have existed long before that study was conducted. I've never heard of a farmer forced to move or pack up and go due to there being a cemetery near by.Where I live, on the escarpment, there are many cemeteries and that's right in the middle of farmland. There are lots of reasons why a law should exist, that doesn't make the law all of a sudden exist. What I'm saying is that I don't think there is a law against farming near cemeteries, I'd be happy to change my mind if you can point me towards it.

It's only a matter of time before we start murdering people to fuel our energy furnaces, and from there it only gets worse.
 
Just don't eat the Soylent Green...
 
 
edit: @fullmetal5550 Fuck, you beat me to it. :(

@Fajita_Jim said:

@RollingZeppelin said:

@Fajita_Jim: I skimmed through that article, it does go into detail about the dangers of pathogenic bacteria contaminating the water supply, but there's no section that talks about the legal requirements of zoning farmland or the location of cemeteries. Also, you didn't address my point about the scrubbers.

Anyway, this is completely tangent to the topic, of which I can tell I'm not going to convince you that there's nothing wrong here. You and Jason can continue to be irrational about the subject. Doesn't affect me or even whether this retrofitting of generators on these furnaces will continue or not.

The article I listed wasn't to show you the laws, it was to show you WHY the laws exist. As in; "Yes, we know, and have known, that dead bodies contaminate the ground." The article also details that this contamination is TOXIC. So the point of that post was this: Being toxic, and being known to be toxic, do you really think people would knowingly farm where such toxins can contaminate foodstuffs? Well, of course not. Therefore, one can safely assume we do NOT have 'dead people' in our food. Seriouslynow is probably going to come about and say something like "But that dust mite poop was once human flesh" so I'm going to preempt him: 'was once' being the operative phrase. If you want to get that specific about things, I'm a star. The food I just ate is a star. The floor I'm walking on is a star. We live on a star. The toilet I took a shit in this morning is a star and so is the shit I left in it. Reason being, everything you see around you with the exception of hydrogen ('see' being used in the metaphorical sense of course, preempting that as well) was formed in the heart of a star.

Farming and cemeteries have existed long before that study was conducted. I've never heard of a farmer forced to move or pack up and go due to there being a cemetery near by.Where I live, on the escarpment, there are many cemeteries and that's right in the middle of farmland. There are lots of reasons why a law should exist, that doesn't make the law all of a sudden exist. What I'm saying is that I don't think there is a law against farming near cemeteries, I'd be happy to change my mind if you can point me towards it.

@BigChickenDinner said:

@ZeForgotten said:

This would probably be way more "WTF?!" if they dug a tunnel under said swimming pool, dragged dead guys and girls down under the pool and then set them on fire.

I totally expected this to be happening......

You disappoint me with this pussy footing around UK.... Shame on you.

Yea, this is what I pictured when I read the headline. Thanks for disappointing me OP!

I see a problem with this. I can't but help but get the feeling that the heat can actually be unhealthy to the living in some way. It seems unsanitary to me.

Theyre not burning the bodies just to heat the pool, theyre using the energy used by the burners.  I dont see the problem with this...  

Finally chavs will give something back to society.

Not a bad idea...burn bodies reach temperatures of 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit and cited estimates that using the waste heat from the Redditch crematorium could save more than $22,000 per year.

For more information visit:

http://www.thepoolfactory.com/

I have a hard time believing people genuinely take issue with this.

The furnaces expel a large amount of energy; excess could be further utilized in various ways.

They aren't burning the bodies to heat anything, it's simply a means of making crematoriums 'greener'.

I want my body to be used Dune style, recycle everything.

@MattyFTM said:

The only "WTF" thing about that article is the sensationalist headline and the terrible reporting. No, they're not "burning dead bodies to heat a swimming pool" they're putting the heat energy released by a crematorium to some use. That heat energy exists. That's a fact. It's either going to be released into the atmosphere, or it can be put to some use. It's a fantastic idea. It doesn't affect the experience at the crematorium and it saves energy. It's brilliant. Every crematorium should do it. I can't believe in 2012 we're only just starting to do this, it should have been done years ago.

I work at a place with a crematorium. Only real fatty or tumor laden bodies produce heat. Even then it doesn't last that long. Trust me.

The headline made me gasp and utter a Helen Lovejoy style phrase, but after reading more about it it seems a good way to save energy.

It's getting cold in here. Throw Jim's other leg on the fire will ya?

@cosi83 said:

We do this type of shit all the time in the UK

Yeah, I mean I burn living people every time I need to boil the kettle.

It sounds innocent... but before long they will want live bodies... the horror!

A thread regarding the dead got resurrected. Irony!

Not too bad of an idea, honestly. The headline and the name of this topic really threw me off at first, though

Good. There was some George Carlin thing about how we should get rid of cemeteries and how the whole idea of "saving all the dead people in one part of town" was weird superstition. If families want to let the bodies be put to use, go ahead.

Why did this terribly written thread get bumped?

for the record- i have absolutely zero problems with the chemical energy of the human corpse being utilized after it passes. you could even argue (somewhat persuasively) that it's selfish to think otherwise.

Surely they could have found a use for the heat that doesn't involve swimming around in it.

Why don't they connect these turbines up to Buckingham Palace and the good people of UK can serve the queen even in death.