Freshly brewed tea and coffee are circulated at 98C and very high pressure through a network of heavily insulated small bore pipes running to and from every home in a neighbourhood. The system distributes heat energy (via heat exchangers), mechanical (hydraulic) energy by virtue of the high delivery pressures, and fresh piping-hot beverages at the turn of a valve.
Energy and beverage consumption are metered.
The grade of tea or coffee will probably vary with the relative affluence of the neighbourhood; some localites will receive Earl Grey tea though their pipes, others just basic Indian blended.-- 8th of 7, Aug 22 2009 What about near-boiling water instead of coffee or tea, so the user can brew any drink they want, or use it for cooking? [+]-- DrWorm, Aug 22 2009 [+] but what he said-- FlyingToaster, Aug 22 2009 very Douglas Adams-- pertinax, Aug 24 2009 // adds milk ... like .... we were served at boarding school //
<shudder>
<whispered aside>
That ..... wasn't....... milk.....
</wa>-- 8th of 7, Aug 24 2009 Rather than having to decide as a community which hot drink you want, why not just let everyone have access to dozens of different beverage taps?The idea states that your consumption is monitored, so you won't pay for drinks you don't like drinking.-- kaz, Aug 25 2009 Yes, why not. Cocoa, green tea, even hot lemon with paracetamol. for flu sufferers.
The selection could change seasonally .... Gluhwein at Christmas.-- 8th of 7, Aug 25 2009 I don't know why, but I think that the added length this would give to your kitchen counter would be an overwhelmingly positive bonus.-- kaz, Aug 25 2009 Visions of a Brasilesque nest of pipes, converters, pressure regulators and other assorted tubery all gurgling quietly away behind the wainscoting. All is well until one of the pipes springs a leak, at which point, you'd better make sure you've filled out a 27B/6 before the PG-Man comes round.-- zen_tom, Aug 25 2009 I really love this. I had no idea you could come up with such a generous and functionally sound group/community hug sort of idea.
Okay, fess up fellow bakers, which one of ya's cloning experiment is he?-- blissmiss, Aug 25 2009 I suspect you'll run into problems with cavitation in your pipes: Happens when the pumped fluid vaporizes and subsequently implodes in the pipe leading to massive damage. Happens under high temp. or low pressure situations. This is the main reason why a trans-atlantic pipeline has never been created: You need a pump installed every couple miles or so to keep your pressures in check, would be drastically inefficient. To keep your pressure high enough will require lots of pump energy, long story short; definitely for the high end community. Also, I've already witnessed water faucets on individual homes that output water at near boiling temps. I'm guessing they are single unit operations as opposed to some sort of community wide distributed network, for good reason. neutral.-- daseva, Aug 25 2009 //boarding school //
NOW it all falls into place.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 25 2009 Yup. Rum, sodomy, and the lash ....
// the ones who do the cloning //
No. We Assimilate other life-forms. Lots of other species do clone themselves and others, though.-- 8th of 7, Aug 25 2009 "They'd have to take a community-wide vote to decide which drink to use"
Have the pipes from the city carry boiling water and each neighborhood could have a brewing vat which would contain whatever the neighborhood wanted steeped. From there, the brewed beverage would be piped to each house.-- Joolin, Dec 14 2009 People have been delivering steam heat to entire neighborhoods for at least 100 years. Couldn't be that much different, by HB standards.
A neighborhood near downtown Boise, ID was built on a natural geothermal heat source over 100 years ago. Several blocks of houses get essentially free heat, so the houses we're all built a good bit bigger than they would have been otherwise (mega mansions instead of plain old mansions).-- oxen crossing, Dec 15 2009 random, halfbakery