Drinking Birds Solve Energy Crisis?

I am sure that most of us have seen one of those cute drinking birds like the one pictured here. You fill a cup with water and get their foam head wet. Then they can run for hours. I discovered recently that few people, however, understand the principles upon which these adorable birds operate. It is not perpetual motion or free energy…these birds employ simple laws of physics and thermodynamics.

As soon as the foam head of the bird gets wet, the water begins to evaporate (provided the humidity is low enough). The evaporating water cools the bird’s head and as well as the sealed glass tube inside the foam head. As the pressure inside the head decreases with cooler temperatures, the colored liquid is drawn up from the body of the bird and into the head. This makes the head of the bird heavier than before, and the bird tips forward to maintain balance. Once the bird tips forward, the liquid is able to flow back out of the head into the body, whereupon the bird stands back up to maintain its balance. This cycle is repeated as long as there is water in the cup to keep the bird’s head wet and the humidity is low enough to evaporate the water. The energy which propels this little bird comes from the sun which maintains air temperature and humidity.

The other day at work, a co-worker suggested that we could attach an electric generator to one of these birds and have them produce electricity. “Pure genius!” I responded. We quickly ran through some rough calculations and figured that if we had 42,000 trillion (4.2 x 10^16) birds running, we could supply the electricity needs of the entire United States! The quantity of birds seemed larger than he had imagined, so he suggested that we build giant birds and position them around fresh water lakes in dry, arid regions of the United States. We envisioned thousands of these giant birds drinking from pristine lakes in Yosemite Valley, California, and other lakes in Colorado and Montana. And who would object to such a solution? Certainly not the environmentalists. What could be more natural than a giant bird drinking from a lake? No pollution. No noise. All natural!