X-Message-Number: 18574
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 11:36:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: LN

Thanks to Bob Ettinger and Kitty Antonik Wakfer for their input on liquid
nitrogen costs.

When I toured Alcor recently, I saw their highly sophisticated system for
LN delivery and distribution to the dewars. As I understand it, they have
been equipped to take bulk delivery of LN for a couple of years, but I
would hope that Hugh Hixon or Mike Perry might spare a moment to confirm
or correct this.

Regarding the possible vacuum failure of a dewar, Bob has mentioned this
repeatedly over the years, but I have already pointed out that in the
cryonics field, we know of only one instance. This occurred about 25 years
ago when a man whose wife was frozen decided that he would maintain her on
a do-it-yourself basis. He placed the dewar on his property in New Jersey,
where LN deliveries were received on an unsupervised basis. So far as
anyone knows, the LN delivery person hammered a frozen valve to free it. I
learned this from Curtis Henderson during the 1990s.

So long as dewars are well treated, there is no reason why such an
accident should occur, and none has occurred since then.

Of course I would assume that CI pays less, per unit of volume, to
fabricate its cryostats. This may be their primary advantage. I note that
Bob doesn't dispute that vacuum pumps are required to maintain the
cryostats.

Since I have never visited CI's facility I leave it to others to elaborate
on this topic if necessary.

--CP

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18574