[LINK] Co-generation Cyber-Cafe Internet coffee appliance

[Tom Worthington]

         LinkGram - Media Release from The Link Institute

         Co-generation web coffee appliance announced

Canberra, 28 January 2009: The Link Institute today announced a 
breakthrough in energy saving to combat global warming: the 
"Cyber-Cafe". This unit provides web services for a home or small 
business and uses the waste heat to keep coffee warm.

The inspiration for the Cyber-Cafe came from two sources: research 
which found that web searches use enough energy to heat 
water 
<http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece> 
and The Trojan Room Coffee Machine at University of Cambridge 
Computer Laboratory <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html>.

Chief Scientist Professor Klerphel reasoned that if a web search 
generated enough heat for a cup of coffee, it might as well be used 
to heat a cup of coffee. The University of Cambridge produced a 
computer equipped coffee pot in the 1990s, but it was powered by 
conventional greenhouse gas producing fossil fuel derived 
electricity. The co-generation coffee pot reduces greenhouse gas 
emissions by 50%.

The web coffee appliance consists of a modified desktop PC. The 
processor chips have been connected via a thermal bridge to a coffee 
pot warming plate. A thermostatic fan has been added to cool the CPU 
if the processing load is too high (or the coffee pot runs dry). A 
supervisor program monitors the coffee temperature and will run extra 
tasks indexing local data and for the global computing cloud, to keep 
the coffee warm, if the processor is not otherwise needed.

The server runs a web site which reports on the current status of the 
web coffee appliance and a how much coffee is left in the pot.

Research has shown that the ideal temperature to serve coffee is 80 
to 85 degrees Celsius 
<http://www.hollandbymail.com/coffee/coffee_preparation.html>, which 
is within the operating range of many commonly used CPUs 
<http://www.technibble.com/what-is-my-computers-maximum-cpu-temperature/>. 
The use of a solid state cooling device to pump heat from the CPU to 
the warming plate is also being investigated 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect>.

Google is rumored to have licensed the technology and is in 
negotiations with a major global chain of coffee shops. "It makes 
sense: the more people who come into a cyber cafe, the more web 
searches and the more coffee they drink." Klerphell said.

;-)



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University