Right now, as I understand it, storage at Alcor would be at liquid nitrogen temperatures (-196°C), which is too cold to be compatible with our protocol. If you try to store one of our preserved persons at that temperature, they will shatter, which is unacceptable according to our quality standards. (To be clear, −196°C also shatters people preserved with Alcor’s methods.)
The target temperature needs to be either −32°C and higher (to prevent freezing), OR somewhere around −122°C with good control of temperature excursions (to precent devitrification or shattering). Intermediate temperatures are not good, for example, it’s actually worse for our preserved people to be cooled down to −90°C for a day then it is for them to be warmed up to 50°C for a day.
Note that the cost to store at −122°C is substantially higher than the cost to store at −32°C. The rough price ratio annoyingly depends a lot on economies of scale, due to the square cube law, but it’s around a factor of 10 or so for realistic small- to medium-scale preservation scenarios. So we definitely prefer −32°C all else being equal: it’s a lot cheaper and it doesn’t cause problems if it fails like colder temperatures can.
I think there will be a variety of possibilities including cold mausoleums certified to work well by the Brain Preservation Foundation, Nectome’s storage, etc. My main issue would be certification by the Brain Preservation Foundation or some other suitable org, because you can mess up preserved people with the wrong temperature.
All that being said, if Alcor had the ability to store at −32°C and offered a good price, and was certified and people wanted it, I don’t see why not? But initially we’re going to offer our own storage solutions by default so we can make sure that quality is maintained.
Right now, as I understand it, storage at Alcor would be at liquid nitrogen temperatures (-196°C), which is too cold to be compatible with our protocol. If you try to store one of our preserved persons at that temperature, they will shatter, which is unacceptable according to our quality standards. (To be clear, −196°C also shatters people preserved with Alcor’s methods.)
The target temperature needs to be either −32°C and higher (to prevent freezing), OR somewhere around −122°C with good control of temperature excursions (to precent devitrification or shattering). Intermediate temperatures are not good, for example, it’s actually worse for our preserved people to be cooled down to −90°C for a day then it is for them to be warmed up to 50°C for a day.
Note that the cost to store at −122°C is substantially higher than the cost to store at −32°C. The rough price ratio annoyingly depends a lot on economies of scale, due to the square cube law, but it’s around a factor of 10 or so for realistic small- to medium-scale preservation scenarios. So we definitely prefer −32°C all else being equal: it’s a lot cheaper and it doesn’t cause problems if it fails like colder temperatures can.
I think there will be a variety of possibilities including cold mausoleums certified to work well by the Brain Preservation Foundation, Nectome’s storage, etc. My main issue would be certification by the Brain Preservation Foundation or some other suitable org, because you can mess up preserved people with the wrong temperature.
All that being said, if Alcor had the ability to store at −32°C and offered a good price, and was certified and people wanted it, I don’t see why not? But initially we’re going to offer our own storage solutions by default so we can make sure that quality is maintained.