As of April 30, 2009, the Alcor Patient Care Trust Fund has assets of
3.05 million dollars, invested as follows:

* The Patient Care Trust owns just over 75% of the shares in
Cryonics Properties, LLC, the limited liability company that owns the
Alcor building (all other shares are owned by Alcor members). These
shares (representing the Trust’s equity in the Alcor building) are
valued at approximately $470,000 based on the original purchase price
of the building (they would be higher at current market value). The
Trust also owns the mortgage on the building, valued at about
$280,000. Alcor pays rent to Cryonics Properties, LLC. Since Alcor
does not occupy the entire building, there are additional tenants who
also pay rent, which provides some additional income for the Patient
Care Trust.

* Capital equipment (primarily dewars) and leasehold improvements
(capital improvements to the Patient Care Bay) valued at
approximately $610,000. These are carried on the books and subject to
depreciation, but are not assets that would be liquidated.

* A cash account in which income (other than investment account
income) is placed, expenses are disbursed, and money is transferred
to the investment account. On the above date it contained about
$200,000 but generally contains on the order of $100,000. In
addition, on the above date the Accounts Receivable totaled $70,000.

* An investment account held at the firm of Morgan Stanley,
containing about $1.42 million. Thus far, no withdrawals from this
account have ever been made.

The balance and investment summary of the Patient Care Trust Morgan
Stanley Investment Account is now being posted monthly on the Alcor
website.

To read more, click here: http://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/patientcaretrustfund.html

In order to pump down two Bigfoot dewars simultaneously, we purchased a second vacuum pump and the other necessary components. Since we tend to order dewars by the pair, doing this will save us about three months getting the dewars ready for patients after a new purchase.

Recently, while testing the boil-off rate of liquid nitrogen from Bigfoot-1, we took the opportunity to gather more data on the temperature differential between the bottom and top of the dewar, should nitrogen supplies be discontinued. (The dewars boil off between ½ and ¾ inches per day, on average.) There was a 5 degree difference between the boiling point of liquid nitrogen and the top of the pod. At the same time, there was a temperature difference of 40 degrees between the top of the pod and the bottom of the dewar’s lid.

Engineer Hugh Hixon estimates that when the last drop of liquid nitrogen evaporated, the temperature at the top of the pod would be no warmer than -180 degrees C. These excellent results are largely because of the conductive nature of the pods themselves, which are made of aluminum.

If we were to lose access to liquid nitrogen, it would take more than 90 days to boil off all the nitrogen. The more efficient dewars would go significantly longer.

edited 11-7-06 to improve clarity
We have completed the boil-off testing for the last of our new dewars (Bigfoot #12). Though this dewar is operating at a slightly higher efficiency that the previous two, it is boiling off about 16.7 liters per day. This is nearly twice the rate of our best performer, Bigfoot #9, which consumes just over 9 liters per day. We’re discussing the return of the new dewars for repair with the manufacturer, but will likely engage in some troubleshooting before they are sequentially returned.

We have arranged to purchase a plasma cutter for the patient care area. This tool will give the necessary equipment to rescue our patients, in case of a catastrophic dewar failure. It has been a slight concern that if one of the dewars imploded as the result of a vacuum failure, we’d have no way to rapidly extract the patients. Once this device arrives, we will have that capacity.

No resolution has yet been seen with the former liquid nitrogen supplier, Matheson Tri-Gas. It became apparent during a regular review some weeks ago that they had been charging us rental fees for storage dewars we did not have. They agreed to audit their records, but we have been unable to get any real numbers from them. Because of their lack of response, Tanya Jones personally audited our delivery records back through January 2004. What she learned is that the billing discrepancies were not a new problem. There was a net difference of 26 nitrogen dewars of various sizes (160 liter, 180 liter, 230 liter and 255 liter) for which we were consistently over-billed.

The next step is to compare her totals to the actual invoices, keeping in mind the discrepancies that were already in place at the beginning of 2004, and attempt to reach a settlement with Tri-Gas.

Tomorrow is the day. We’ve been waiting for over a year. Tomorrow we move the patients.

The construction isn’t done. As everybody already knows, we’ve been involved in a dispute with the construction company over the completion of this project. They basically abondoned it for a long while last year, during a time that we had more intense concerns than riding herd on languishing construction people. Unfortunately during that time, the construction company became over-extended and suffered serious critical personnel injury. Once we turned our attention back to that painfully-late project, it was too late to save it gracefully. Instead, it has been frustrating. (We’re still trying to finish, but it finally won’t be much longer.)

The liquid nitrogen plumbing isn’t quite done. We will not have automated fills of the dewars for at least a week after the patients move. We’ve been pulling our entire nitrogen supply off the bulk tank since it was filled last week, but we still haven’t pulled enough to replace the broken valve. Hugh, as the critical individual on this project, has decided his annual-and-only vacation at the Space Access conference is more important. We’ll have to fill the dewars manually (as they need it), and Hugh will be involved with all of them until the plumbing is complete.

If there is a critical juncture in this move, it’s in the fact that the plan involves using a crane to pick the dewars up and swing them around to the new space (lifting only a few inches off the ground). We know we can roll them and all the wheels are greased, so we just have to put them in reach of the crane. We’ll be testing the lifting lugs, and on some dewars that are more than a decade old. The patients are safely submerged in liquid nitrogen, but we’ve been boiling off the uppermost layers to reduce the weight of the units. That will reduce the load on the lugs somewhat.

We’ve never had any of these dewars fail (or fall) with patients inside; but like the delicate move from California, this move is fraught with the potential for disaster.

We believe it will be fine and that all will be well and the new space seem used after so long unfinished. But there’s that niggling doubt, that concern for defenseless things, furry or otherwise, that this could go horribly wrong.

We have tried to engineer this move for safety. Hiring professionals to do the heavy lifting, instead of rolling dewars by hand along the heavily sloped parking lot… that was for patient and staff safety. We have installed a new hoist, that will simplify the moving of patients, if a dewar should suffer a leak. We weren’t able to obtain a plasma cutter in time for the move, and that may become a time-sensitive issue if one of the dewars impacts. (We have cutting tools, of course, but they would take longer in extracting the patients than the beam would.) We do have a spare dewar and enough liquid nitrogen to fill it and the means to do so quickly.

We have also tried to engineer it for speed. We don’t want the bays to be split any longer than they have to, and we don’t want to have to do this two days in a row. The plan is good. The plan should work.