--First, let me say thank you to all who gave great feedback especially: Leonard Belfroy, Tomas and Carole, Gary, and Sterling.

Before I write about why the Casimir Effect Generator (CEG) won't work "as-is", let me talk a bit about why I think this direction of FE research is worth taking a closer look into:
Zero-point energy (Z-PE) is energy that is all around us. It exists in the form of photons popping into and out of existance. The best thing about zero point energy is that it's 100% free! Z-PE occurs seemingly independant of any cause within our universe, perhaps the source of energy disturbance comes from other dimensions we cannot see, or from the instability of the "fabric" of space-time itself. Nonetheless, ZP-E exists, it's free, and the evidence of its existance is the Casimir Effect which has been experimentally tested and verified.

The reason the Casimir Effect Generator I proposed last week won't work as-is is so simple I wanted to kick myself when it occured to me. The way I set up the generator would only allow force to be applied in one direction at a constant rate. The CEG could work depending on whether or not the Casimir Effect applies a constant force (See next Para). Piezoelectric (PZE) materials only produce a current by intermitent application of force, not constant application of force. (Currently they're investigating the use of PZE materials on the heals of soldiers' combat boots to generate power for troops in the field. These heal PZE devices generate a current each time the soldier takes a step(See Scientific American, October 2003 cover story for more information)).

So the trick now is to figure out how to make a device that exploits Z-PE to generate a current. I'm still on the piezoelectric kick, so that's the route I'll be exploring. First thing I'll investigate is whether or not a probability curve for zero-point energy has been derived based on experimental data. The probability curve will let me know whether Z-PE is relatively uniform in occurance (i.e. if particles pop in and out of existance at a relatively uniform or non- uniform rate). If the rate of Z-PE occurance is uniform, then I have no ideas how to redesign the CEG. However, if the Z-PE is non-uniform then the CEG could work as-is.

Anyone have any info or experimental data for the Casimir Effect?

Tomas and Carole had an interesting suggestion:
Making this into a generator might uncover the free energy concepts around. In this case two small plates are structures, they could be resonating and producing resonate structures on their sides. Here think of the two slit experiment, the slits are the plates, the interference pattern are the resonate structures that might be produced. Like a tuning fork. Except the resonate pattern may push the plates in.

Scaled up you could produce energy if you could use the reaction of the resonance.

Sorry for being long winded, but I think sometimes this subject requires lengthy wind!