X-Message-Number: 13269
From: "Trygve B. Bauge" <>
Subject: Huge quantities of inexpensive liquid nitrogen possibly becoming
available in 5 years.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 18:57:30 +0100
To members of the cryonet mailing list.
In Norway we produce large quantities of natural gas.
Traditionally this is sold, pumped back in the ground or just burned
out at the oil fields.
Our parliament wants to build gas powered electrical power plants.
They are in the process of deciding whether to build traditional power
plants that produce a lot of CO2 gas and other polutants, or produce new
pollution free power plants like the one suggested by the large Norwegian
engineering company Aker Maritime:
http://www.akermaritime.no/emission_free_gas/start.html
Aker Maritime's proposal would create huge quantities of liquid nitrogen and
liquid carbon dioxside, as a side effect of their production of electricity.
They plan to release the nitrogen back to the athmosphere or pump it back
into the ground and to store the CO2 in the ocean or on land. Basically it
is a
byproduct they would generate in enormous quantities and that they not yet
have a marked for.
The electricity generated would pay for the power plant, and they are not
dependent upon selling the liquid Nitrogen or the liquid Carbondioxside,
it is more seen as a waste product that they are trying to find a way to
dispose of.
Some of the CO2 might be used to produce dry ice, for use in the export of
vegetables and frozen fish.
As of today liquid Nitrogen and dry ice is much more expensive in Norway
than in the United States,
In Norway we pay 13 cents and up per liter of liquid nitrogen, (when bought
in millions of liters a year.)
and 1.25 dollars and up per kilo of dry ice when bought in thousands of
kilos.
In smaller quantities the prices are more like 2.50 dollars per liter of
liquid nitrogen and 2 dollars or more per kilo of dry ice.
There is also a 23 % value added tax.
In the United States dry is is about 14 cents a lbs and up (31 cents per
kilo)
including 8 percent sales tax, (Colorado dry ice company in Denver),
and liquid nitrogen I seem to recall is 11 cents and up per liter even in
smaller quantities in California.
While the prices in the rest of Europe is somewhere in between the Norwegian
and the US prices.
If the proposed power plant is built it would certainly bring down the
prices of liquid nitrogen and dry ice in Norway.
The fish exporters and those involved in fruit and vegetable transport, or
storing of cell samples or termal photography, or super cooled magnets &
super cooled super conductors (electricity without resistance), would
benefit, as would everyone else using dry ice, or liquid CO2 or liquid
Nitrogen.
If the power plant set a price lower than that found in the United States,
then we would possibly be able to attract from the rest of the world and to
Norway industries using these coolants.
If we in the cryonic movement built a terrain integrated storage facilty
next door to the proposed power plant, we could have liquid nitrogen pumped
in at a very low cost, and with no transport cost and no cost for having the
liquid nitrogen added into our storage thanks.
A terrain integrated storage facilty can be built at about $1100 or less per
square meter ($100 or less per square foot, fully finished & including land)
and lasts for centures if we use the technology found at
http://www.formworksbuilding.com/who.html
Each person would take up only 0.25 square meter of floor space,
but by having each person pay for 1 full square meter we can get to include
a care taker apartment where some student or author or scientist can live
and get free rent, in return for keeping an eye on the facility.
A 4 person dewar takes up one square meter & cells for about
$16,000-$20,000, (Ten years ago Trans Time used to charge $8,000 for the
space one person takes up in a dewar.) And aside from adjusting the vacume
every few years, the dewars last a long time too.
There are also suspension costs and reanimation costs.
Varying from $10,000 to well over $100,000 per person dependent upon the
technology, salaries and other sur charges involved.
But once a strong concrete house is built, and the person is placed in a
dewar,
it is the cooling cost that is the only running expense.
That means liquid nitrogen, transport of this, storing it and pumping it
into
the dewars.
With the boil off rate being 14 liters and up a day for a 4 person dewar,
we are faced with 3 1/2 liters a day per person at the best,
or about 1300 liters a year per person at the best, more when the dewars are
not full.
Buying and adding liquid nitrogen might today easily run $250 a year even
with unpaid volunteer workers at the cryonic facility. And much more when
the dewars are not used to capacity, workers are paid, or some overhead
organization is taking a piece too.
To pay for the cooling expense at 5 % annual interest one has to invest
from $ 5000 and up,
Some of the existing cryonic facilities request a much higher investment
e.g. from about $ 10,000 ($28,000 minus the dewar and suspension cost) at CI
to well over $50,000 at some of the other cryonic facilities.
If the liquid nitrogen instead of being heated and released back into the
atmosphere or ground, instead was pumped directly from the power plant and
into the dewars at one cent per liter
the annual cost for 1300 liters would be less than 15 dollars.
That would take a much smaller initial investment for continuous cooling,
e.g. $300 and up with 5 % interest rate.
Further more, with inexpensive liquid nitrogen one could possibly look at
less expensive larger storage tanks with higher evaporation rates and still
get lower entry cost for cryonic suspension, e.g. save more on the dewar
than one has to invest to pay for more liquid nitrogen.
Even with existing dewars the price of cryonics will go down:
$10,000 and up for the suspension at a next door hospice.
$ 1,100 or less for one square meter of storage building,
$ 5,000 or less for the space in a dewar,
$ 500 or less to pay one's part of a 100 meter liquid nitrogen pipeline.
$ 300 invested in power plant shares, with interest paying for the
annual
liquid nitrogen consumption.
$ 300 invested with compound interest to cover reanimation
$ 800 invested, with compound interest to cover unforseen expenses.
---------
$18,000 as the minimum suspension cost.
(or $ 10,000 less than the least expensive solution today.)
What I am saying is that:
Inexpensive liquid nitrogen,
combined with long lasting terrain integrated storage facilities,
with built in care taker apartments,
and the use of larger dewars,
will open for inexpensive cryonic storage
which will open for large scale cryonic storage.
Such scenarios will also cost less to maintain, and make it less
important to maintain a large investment portfolio over the centuries.
Anyway if the price of liquid nitrogen and liquid CO2 in Norway falls below
the prices in the United states, this will open for patients being stored
less expensively in Norway than in the United States.
In which case Americans and Europeans, might look at storing their patients
here rather than in the United States.
Other points to consider is the fact that a gas powered electrical power
plant very likely will be built somewhere along our coast line.
The coast line is very windy and we have lots of smaller streams all over
the place. A cryogenic facility can easily get all its electrical needs
covered by
its own sturdy wind or stream generator. In case the local liquid nitrogen
production was to stop after a few generations, one would have the option of
switching to electrical recycling and recooling of the nitrogen.
I have spoken at length both to the engineer in charge of the proposed power
plant at Aker Maritime, and the head of marketing for Norway's largest
manufacturer of liquid Nitrogen, Norsk Hydro, which also happens to be
Norways largest company.
The latter expressed interest in investing in the proposed power plant,
and both expressed interest in sale of liquid nitrogen to the cryonics
industry.
If the power plant is built they would still have more of the stuff than
they can possible sell.
The timing is about 5 years, with $ 2.5 million already having been spent by
Aker Maritime on the preplanning.
Their plan is apparently to build a small pilot power plant at the cost of $
125 million to $ 500 million, over the next few years,
Unless of course our government opts to build the older more poluting
power plant model that does not produce liquid nitrogen, but releases much
more CO2 and other poluttants, and might run into problems with the
standards set in the Kyoto agreement.
Sincerely
Trygve Bauge
Feedback is welcome.
Life-Extension Systems, the Norwegian Icebathing Assoc. & Action 88.
To borrow a VHS presentation of my work, send $50 to Trygve Bauge
c/o Aksjon 88, Pb. 59 Hovseter, 0705 Oslo, Norway,Ph 47-2214-8078
E-mail: http://www.powertech.no/~trygveb/
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