For a successful cryopreservation, you need facilities for storage, liquid nitrogen and staff overseeing the operation. All that costs money. Plastination alleviates some of those costs, and economies of scale would also apply.
And cryonics is expensive: The cryoprotectants currently used alone are nothing to sneer at.
The perfusate has a shelf life of several years when stored in an ordinary refrigerator. Alcor’s purchase price for the ingredients in all 10 2-liter bags of perfusate, including M22, is ~$1,500. The concentration of M22 increases by a factor of 1.67 between bags, except that the last 3 bags have the same terminal concentration. While 10 bags is sufficient to achieve the desired terminal jugular cryoprotectant concentration, 16 bags were prepared for the initial trial (the final 9 bags having the same terminal concentration) to ensure that enough bags were available to achieve terminal jugular cryoprotectant concentration.
For a successful cryopreservation, you need facilities for storage, liquid nitrogen and staff overseeing the operation. All that costs money. Plastination alleviates some of those costs, and economies of scale would also apply.
And cryonics is expensive: The cryoprotectants currently used alone are nothing to sneer at.
—A Big Hairy Audacious Goal for Cryonics, Ralph Merkle, 2014