The time to develop Drinking Bird Power is now! I can clearly
see the day when fields of great crystalline birds, their
red hats bobbing in unison, their red liquid cores rising
and falling like the tides, provides for all the worlds
energy. Astride every water heater, and under every hood,
a silent chorus of Drinking Birds will power our lives.
And they will dance silently upon the graves of the patholigical
skeptics and scietific welfare queens who denied and feared
their reality. Here's to "Infinite Drinking!"
;-) ;-)
--
Barry Merriman
Asst. Prof., UCLA Dept. of Math
Research Scientist, UCSD Fusion Energy Research Program
I am not sure about the methanol, but propane should work well. I think that the little commercial toys had freon in them as it is not flammable. Actually there was a large wheel built a few years ago that ran in warm water. The 5 gal propane tanks on it alternately dipped in the warm water and into the air. As the propane turned to gas at the bottom, it pushed liquid propane to the top. Good torque but slow revolutions.
Bigger connecting pipes and a working fluid that vaporizes using a smaller amount of energy would improve the efficiency. Freon is a good fluid for refrigeration because it has a high heat transfer capability. Propane would be better, but more dangerous. I think it might be viable for some uses.
Another improvement would be to only heat a small portion of the working fluid or even use one fluid to transport another heavier fluid such as water.
Interestingly enough, they have scrapped all those big diggers in the US anyway.
With this design of heat driven wheel, there are other ways to increase the efficiency. One of the problems is that while the heat energy was being used to heat the entire tank of fluid (a la the bird), it is only necessary to heat enough fluid and turn to gas what is needed to drive the mass of fluid up against gravity. There really should be two sets of tanks. One set for the mass that is moved and the other set for the fluid that is vaporized. It might even be more efficient to heat a gas like air to achieve the motive pressure. This could be getting to be mopre like a stirling cycle engine with liquid pistons.
