Why is this news worthy? The crematorium have clearly just wanted to gain some publicity from this.

We have a furnace, we have some water, wow look if we pass the water over the furnace we get hot water!

Good idea but kind of dull. Could they not just have gone ahead and done it and not bothered asking anyone how they feel? Especially grieving irrational people.

stupid idea, just use dead ones, don't bother freezing them.

Dead horses would be useful as there is a distinct lack glue factories around there...

Ah, is this the first generation of these new CHP local power plants we keep hearing about then?

I guess it comes under the heading of "biomass" ...

Publicity? Are you serious? 'Hey everyone, hurry up and get dying!!!'...

I think it's a great idea as it goes - and right of them to put this out to consultation - imagine the backlash if they DIDN'T?

Cripes, how hot would it get when they cremate alcoholics.

Global warming? PAH- its the local crem!

How far are we going to go - pissing into hot water bottles? Colostomy bags in the shape of body suits so as not to waste heat??

(Ian, you from Saltcoats??)

...there's no way he'd want to provide comfort to the living. He'd much prefer to provide discomfort, as he does in life. He'd probably want a handful of his ashes to be flung in the face of each person attending the service. Miserable sod.

Next we'll be burning Chav's in full burberry to produce more heat....

...carry on!

Bad idea, imagine all those poor souls thinking their going to their idea of Heaven only to end up stuck in the heat exchanger coil of the heating system. Mark my words the capacity of the system is limited and one day the pressure of all the souls trying to get out of the heat exchanger will be too great for the system to hold and a portal will be ripped between worlds.

. . just freeze grandad before sticking him in the oven. Even MORE heat will therefore be produced thus keeping the place warmer longer.

now if we turn all our coal / oil fired powerstations into monster crems, we 'kill' two birds with one stone do we not ???

just a thought !!!

( oh, the avatar seemed sonehow appropriate lol )

Haven't even taken my coat off

Never mind Gordon Brown giving old biddies handouts to heat their homes over Christmas. All they need do is sling their friend Doris onto the fireplace. Sorted.

The origin of almost all of the heat is the gas used to provide the extremely hot flame that is needed to dispose of the remains. Human bodies are not combustible material (being mostly water). Except for really fat ones, and they need to have a wick to burn properly rather than just char.

Even hippies contribute to greenhouse gases when they are burned or buried.

Is this energy as green as Soylent green?

We need to think carefully about the potential cost of this energy source.

Why does a crematorium need publicity?

.. maybe i can use this to heat my house now the boiler is knackered, all i need is some dead people.....

It should be done on a commercial scale. If all power stations were adapted to become corpse-burning, coupled with the efficient air scrubbers which crematoria are equipped with, it could be very cost-effective, cheap power.

The ash that's left gets recycled into fertiliser and is used to grow CO2 -absorbing replacement trees in?

I'm all for it.

....I was soooo cold! Surely no one will miss a few dead pensioners?

I wonder why the council didnt use frozen dogs?

to dry and season? thats gotta be the smelly part. wet wood is hopeless, it needs to dry out a bit first, why should people be different?

For obvious reasons basic science isn't part of a theology degree. Far from being a 'last act of generosity' it'll just mean the operators have to turn up the burner a bit higher to heat the radiators as well. It's bloody hard to burn a human body, as anyone who's tried to dispose of a cheating partner in a campfire will know. They certainly won't give out any excess heat because they have virtually no fuel content.

I don't see any ethical issues in surrounding the oven with pumped central heating pipes to recapture lost heat. All the energy comes from burning gas, not the body. (Gas, of course, being nothing more than refined dead animals anyway.)

> Far from being a 'last act of generosity' it'll just mean the operators have to

> turn up the burner a bit higher

Actually, they are planning to use the "lost" heat (ever touched the outside of a furnace? Even with insulation, it's still shit hot!), so there is no extra fuel used, just less waste. Win-win.

to our maker saying "step into the light".

The old Egyptian railways used to burn mummies for fuel in the trains. The did it for years and years they were almost mined.