When the crematorium in Halmstad, Sweden, was flagged for air pollution, town officials came up with the bright idea of using the “heat” as a new energy source:

“It was when we were discussing all these environmental issues that we started thinking about the energy that is used in the cremations and realised that instead of all that heat just going up into the air, we could make use of it somehow. It was just rising into the skies for nothing,” said Lennart Andersson, the director of the cemetery in the town of Halmstad. “For starters we will heat our own premises. But I hope we can connect to the district heating network in the future.”

If the idea is implemented then Sweden may be line as the most “ghoulish” industrialized country of the world, adding crematoriums as an energy source along with its assisted suicide tourist industry.

It’s not that the town has no other viable source of energy, these people find the idea okay because, according to them, the idea will “save them money” and its “environmental”.

“Of course it’s possible that there will be some discussion about the ethics of this, but from our side, this is a purely environmental idea,” he said. “There will be no difference in the ashes.”

Hopefully there will be more than just “some” discussion about ethics.

One wonders, the type of conversations after this new source of energy has been implemented in the town.

“Say Sven, how many people does it take to heat an average home”?

One wonders if enviromentalists will take to the idea? On the one hand it’s a renewable energy source, but on the other hand, it’s a carbon based fuel.

Joking aside, crematoriums do provide a valuable service, yet are we, as a society, ready to accept them as an energy source?

While those who work in this industry may have become immune to working with the dead, the rest of us are still tied to our deceased loved ones in ways that cannot be measured. I’m know I’m not ready to reduce them to “heat” units, even if it’s “environmental” and “costs less”.

By LBG

Image – Cemetery