Thanks for clarifying that. His story changes but there are some parts which just eluded me.
Thanks also for the links and the explanation; it does make a lot more sense because of that.
Just as an aside, the first thing that popped into my mind after reading the name of the theorem was, "Looks like Mills is just pulling stuff out of his Noether Region."
But yeah, as I've said before, I used to buy into the whole zero-point energy thing for about a year or two. My thinking was that we weren't actually creating energy from nothing but maybe just taking it from another spot in the universe that exists and the machine is just tapping into that source. As far as the balance of the universe is concerned, equilibrium (or whatever) is maintained and so therefore it's not true that Inventor X is trying to "get something from nothing." I hope that makes sense anyway.
I think finally I realized that if one of these devices actually worked, we'd be seeing them all over the place and that killed my enthusiasm and belief in the whole zero-point energy scene.