>>12305444Ignoring every other aspect: to be truly free energy in the real world, not only does such a device need to sustain itself, it needs to sustain every part of itself. To speak generally, it's not enough to simply create power. It also needs to create enough to power the replacement or repair of each of its parts and components, or else rely on an outside system for these things.
If the outside system is also unable to maintain its own costs, it must itself rely on a different system, and so on. Together, until the very bottom, the whole may be considered to be a system in itself, as the higher functions will not work without the existence and workings of the lower. No observed system has a truly greater efficiency than 100%, thus entropy.
Let us assume it works as you imagine. Then, on the scales required to make such a thing remotely viable to generate energy, it would severely tax every other lower system. Consider, in raw materials alone, just how much it would take to mine or grow each tube. And each one of those tubes will age and decay - they'll have to be replaced at some point.
As to this specific design, there are two possibilities depending on the nature of the fluid: either capillary action would not be enough to pull the liquid out of the tube without help, minor though that help may be, while any fluid (or superfluid) that could would follow the side of the tube and not fall on the wheel. You'd have to put the wheel perfectly flush with the tube, which creates its own problems.
