1430 People Power

Not long ago I wrote about how our local sewage treatment plant is harnessing the power of waste by using the methane generated from said waste to generate power.
Waste not want not.
Well another community-minded organization has thought up a new responsible and innovative alternative energy source. People power. Literally. They are actually burning people to make heat.
Whoa, you say, I’ve heard of biomass incinerators, but this is ridiculous. Never fear, like biomass incinerators only use trees that are already cut down, peoplepower burners only use people who are already dead.
It’s happening in Austria of all places. Undertakers there say they plan to funnel the excess heat generated by the crematorium next door into their new headquarters.
Makes sense, why let all that excess people heat escape into the atmosphere? Although I’m a little concerned. Lord knows what sort of greenhouse gasses the average rich food fed Austrian contributes upon immolation.
Also, I have a problem with the name crematory. It sounds more like a cold place—like a dormitory for cream. And crematorium sounds even worse. Like an emporium of some sort. You know, like the Builders Emporium. You expect choices and specialty items.
So a crematorium sounds like a place where you shop for different gourmet creams from different breeds of cows.
From crematorium to power plant. Pellet stove to people stove. Still, if you look at it coldly, you’re average cremation consumes more heat than it produces. Most cremation requires an input of energy to achieve temperatures over 1500 degrees, so there’s every economic reason to recapture a little of that heat.
We’ll just have to think of a new final goodbye.
“Ashes to ashes dust to dust, we hate to recycle you but we must we must.”
America, ya gotta love it.