[ The energy is free, but the cost of capturing and transforming it is not.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tanstaafl.asp ]
If anyone ever creates a “ZPE” device they better not tell a soul but use this advice:
1. Setup a “Solar Farm” consisting of Solar panels that are “fake”
2. Put the ZPE device into the “DC/AC conversion shed”
3. Make enough money to slowly buy out an entire state’s energy utility companies and have them all running on ZPE.
4. THEN DISCLOSE as you hold the state’s energy hostage under threat of turning the entire region off, you demand to not be stopped from releasing how to make the device to everyone on the internet. Use the few billion you have to hire enough security to keep yourself alive.
* Read “Let there be light” by Heinlein.
I don't remember that one being in my Elementary School Library where I first came across RAH.