How does water get into a coconut? Aside from the transpiration that pulls water up the trunk, capillarity is the answer at both the root and the coconut.
See attached for how to pull water uphill on a small level. Stair-step some capillary faucets up the side of a building and you'll have a water flow that provides electricity for a home. <$2,000.
I have another design that reverse-engineers rain for a larger building with significant temperature differential (skyscraper).
http://keihatsu.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-energy-machine.html
uh i don't think this will work. doesn't even look like capillary tubes to me, looks more like strings of wick. and if it does work it will be very very low in power, wont even be able to to run a small motor. even if u scale this up in size it will be very low in power. am i missing something? have you seen how capillary tubes work in real life?
don't mean to discredit your idea, please explain any other details you might have. i might have this all wrong.
oh and by the way, WELCOME TO THE FORUM!
bye.
Capillary tubes do work (albeit slowly), however that is electrostatic energy that can be harnessed. Intelligent engineering of this idea will more than provide electricity for a house. Leaky faucets in your kitchen/bathroom will fill a bathtub within 24 hours. One bathtub of water is about how much water is required to reach the roof of your house to provide sufficient kilowatts to run the home's electricity needs.
Also... the above does not employ temperature differential whatsoever. Rain works in a similar manner. Warm air at the bottom accelerates evaporation. Cooler air at the top accelerates condensation. Making rain. Rain is certainly harnessable energy.
I've also been playing with ideas based on cappilary-action. The problem with the above idea is that any material that sucks up water, does not let it go. What is needed is a sponge that sucks up water and lets it go when you turn it around (in example 90 degrees). Then you could just have a wheel with a bunch of sponges on it halfway in water.
What happens is that the sponges on the right suck up water and pull the right side of the wheel down. On the left side of the wheel, the sponges are turned 90 degrees and let the water go. All that is needed is a spongelike material that loses its cappilary-action when it is turned around.
I'm not into chemistry to make such a material, but I feel that whoever can should give it a go as this could be the free energy machine this planet needs.
or maybe a wheel made of this kind of material:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/16/researchers-teach-liquid-to-flow-uphill-hope-to-cool-future-cpu/
this nano stuff make water flow upwards on its surface!