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Crematorium to keep mourners warm by burning bodies of loved ones
Last updated at 23:52pm on 08.01.08Heat created by burning the dead at crematoria could be used to keep mourners warm under plans to make funerals more environmentally-friendly.
Instead of letting the gases emitted by cremation escape into the atmosphere, councils want to use them to heat radiators or even generate electricity.
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Corpse heat: Bosses on Tameside Council are planning to use the heat generated from cremating bodies to keep the mourners warm at Dukinfield Crematorium (pictured)
They admit some might find the idea of being kept warm by the remains of their loved-ones macabre.
The heat generated by burning bodies will be used to keep mourners warm
But there are thought to be no religious objections, and ever-tighter controls on pollution mean such systems could become commonplace.
Harmful mercury emissions are created by cremating those with old tooth fillings. To meet tough pollution targets, councils are having to fit filters to crematoria.
Cremation requires temperatures of as much as 1,000C but this must be reduced to around 160C for the mercury to be removed, which requires heat exchangers to be installed in chimneys.
This involves passing the hot fumes through what are effectively cold water radiators. They absorb much of the heat and it is this which can be reused.
Tameside Council in Greater Manchester is planning to link heat exchangers at Dukinfield Crematorium with its boiler system and hopes to use it to generate electricity through turbines.
Environment officer Robin Monk said: "We are conscious that it might be a sensitive matter. Basically, it's just heat which will otherwise be lost.
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Green thinking: Tameside Council says it is deadly serious about the plan which it claims will reduce its carbon footprint
"We could just install the mercury abatement equipment. But in this day and age we all have to look at reducing our carbon footprint."
Government requirements that half of cremations are subject to mercury filtration by 2012 means many more are likely to follow Tameside.
Reader views (7)
Is there nothing sacred anymore? I mean honestly. The global warming nuts are taking over and there is no where to hide, even in dying you can't escape them. Creepy.
- Marie, UK
They should use it to power hearses: then you could be quick and dead at the same time.
- Barbie, London UK
Surely, the majority of the heat is produced by the gas burners burning the body rather than the body itself burning so I can't see a problem with this at all.
- Chris P, London
It's a great idea.
- Paul, London
The ashes would make a tidy fertilizer on an allotment too.
- Squiz, Islington
Well it's a good idea, but couldn't they just do it without letting us know?
I love the quote about crematoriums having to reduce their carbon footprint!
- Roz, Chamonix, France
This sounds like the film Soyent Green where the elderly were turned into food (without their knowledge) or the Matrix where people were kept alive and the heat from their bodies powered the robot city.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
