Is the frozen dead guy in Nederland contributing to global warming?

February 19, 2010 · Posted by in Energy 

Bo Shaffer pours dry ice on the frozen body of Grandpa Bredo Morstoel in Nederland in 2006. Grandpa Bredo died in 1989, in Norway.

Bo Shaffer pours dry ice on the frozen body of "Grandpa" Bredo Morstoel in Nederland in 2006. Grandpa Bredo died in 1989, in Norway.

In the last several years, the city and county of Boulder have been working to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s possible they’ve forgotten one significant source of carbon: the frozen dead guy who’s kept in a Tuff Shed in Nederland.

As most Boulderites — and anyone who’s ever headed up the hill to Frozen Dead Guy Days — probably knows, the body of “Grandpa” Bredo Morstoel, a Norwegian who died of a heart condition in 1989, has been kept at the International Cryonics Institute and Center for Life Extension, or ICICLE (aka the Tuff Shed), since the mid 1990s. (Before that, he was briefly put in a deep freeze at a cryonics joint in Oakland.)

Grandpa Bredo is being kept on ice at the behest of his family, who apparently believe that, at some point in the future, medical technology will advance to the point that Grandpa can be rewarmed, and therefore, “reanimated.”

But until he is, a Boulder County man who was hired by the family, Bo Shaffer, drives up to the Tuff Shed once a month with 1,600 pounds of dry ice in his truck to keep Grandpa cold.

A story in today’s Daily Camera advancing this year’s Frozen Dead Guy Days noted the 1,600 pounds number, and one astute commenter (Moran_Bunrift) wrote this at the end of the article:

1600 pounds of dry ice per *month* for 15 years….. Ya know what “dry ice” is kiddies? Frozen carbon dioxide.

This guy has left a 270,000+ pound carbon footprint since he DIED, boys and girls. And there’s no end in sight.

Ironic, isn’t it?

So should Boulder County be ringing the environmental alarm on Grandpa Bredo? Well, it’s true, dry ice is essentially carbon dioxide in its solid form. And 1600 pounds of dry ice is about the same amount of carbon dioxide that the average car emits into the atmosphere when it’s driven for 2,726 miles.

But here’s the thing, the carbon dioxide gas that is turned into carbon dioxide solids (i.e. dry ice) probably already existed in the atmosphere. In most cases, the carbon dioxide that’s used is a byproduct of another process, such as producing ammonia from nitrogen and natural gas, or large-scale fermentation. So, if the carbon dioxide didn’t become dry ice (that ultimately ended up melting in Grandpa Bredo’s sarcophagus), it would have just been floating around in the atmosphere anyway.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there’s no added carbon footprint associated with keeping a frozen dead guy in Ned. First of all, it takes energy to turn carbon dioxide gas into dry ice (first it’s compressed to a liquid, and then its allowed to expand, turning the liquid into the solid that we know as dry ice). And secondly, Bo Shaffer puts some serious miles on his truck bringing the dry ice up from Denver every month.

So, from a global perspective, we at BigGreenBoulder aren’t convinced thatGrandpa Bredo will push global warming to the tipping point. But we want to know what you think. Leave us a note in the comments section below!

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2 Responses to “Is the frozen dead guy in Nederland contributing to global warming?”

  1. taylen2404 on February 19th, 2010 6:36 pm

    well, i'm glad a dead guy isn't pushing global warming over the edge…but the other side of the story: who would want to be preserved? i mean, to each his own but as for me, i wouldn't want to be reanimated with my nasty wrinkly skin in 50 years! i just don't see the point…

  2. Moran_Bunrift on March 4th, 2010 9:01 pm

    Ummm,

    I wrote the quoted comment and stand by it. Your logic is flawed.

    In response: The CO2 in question is produced by a process (thus adding to the atmospheric CO2) and could be sequestered instead of releasing it to the atmosphere to keep a dead guy frozen.

    Thus the carbon footprint is being caused by the demand for dry ice to keep a dead guy frozen.