What is the list's opinion of this doohickey?

In trying to help a friend of mine with a paper on the future use of electricity in transportation, I came across mention of this thing. As near as I can tell, it's supposed to consist of pairs of opposing permanent magnets arranged in such a way that the attractive and repulsive characteristics of the magnet poles combine to turn a crank shaft without the need for an external source of power.

I know, I know. Sounds like a perpetual motion machine. Which is what I thought as well, at least initially.

But if you count the intrinsic attraction/repulsion as the energy input, then it doesn't create energy; it only redirects it.

I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere. But I just don't grok the math well enough to see where.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester (fictional monster hunter portrayed by Jensen Ackles)

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.