Crisis of Wind and Magic
an excerpt

Jimmy Richler was standing by the switch, the final step toward starting the machine. A crowd of excited onlookers crowded around him. He felt the tension of the moment and without considering a single doubt, he reached for the switch and flipped it on.
Many people argued that even if zero-point energy could be harnessed that the amount would be so minuscule as to not be worth the effort. Others argued that it was the wave of the future and would be able to replace all current methods of energy cheap and be infinitely renewable.
Jimmy Richler and the compound in Canada had no chance to consider these important rationales of thought or what it might have meant to them. They were all wrong and Jimmy Richler knew no more.