The SciFi series StarGate Atlantis talks about Zero Point Modules all the time (They call them Zed PM or ZPM). It's sort of like Gilligan's Island where they can't get off the island because every time they try they fail by the end of the show. On Stargate Atlantis the plot goes that they start off finding a ZedPM and by the end of the show, it turns out it's either run down already or they've lost it for one reason or another. Boo hoo. Foiled again. No ZPM for Stargate Atlantis. I call it the Gilligan effect and every series has one. So this Gilligan effect proves that scientists will never be able to retain and use the full power of the ZPMs even at a nano scale.

so if these ZPMs are often 'run-down' - it must mean they need some sort of power source... ?

doh!

If I remember my Stargate tech correctly, each ZPM actually contains an artificially created mini-universe. As the zero point energy is tapped out of it, the mini-universe eventually reaches maximum entropy, at which point your ZPM is no good anymore (because no one around today can replicate the ancient technology used to create the ZPMs). They're supposed to last a million years or so with normal use but, of course, the Stargate characters only have a handful of million-year-old ZPMs to begin with and they always seem to run into weird situations that suck one of their ZPMs dry in 10 minutes.