By no means can I claim to understand quantum mechanics BUT I believe I heard the physicist Lawrence Krauss intimate that our particular universe, be nature of it's form of creation, would continue to expand forever. Would that not be considered "perpetual motion" .....if true?
And if true, could we not conceivable find a way to harness that expansion energy?
No there is energy driving every process. For example, isn't an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom perpetual motion? No, not when you think about it. If you cool the atom to absolute zero all motion stops. So external heat is driving the atomic motion.
If the universe expands forever that just means that the initial energy of the Big Bang was large enough to overcome the gravitational forces that would tend to pull the matter back to the center of the original event. So the universe just achieved "escape velocity" in a manner of speaking. No more perpetual motion than a rocket accelerating to escape velocity, then the propulsion stops but the rocket keeps moving away from the Earth. Eventually if in the universe only the rocket and the Earth existed the rocket would end up crashing back into the Earth since space is curved.
The idea of the universe expanding is somewhat different because the universe isn't expanding into anything. It is in effect creating 3D space. It is more a 3D bubble expanding into a 4D multiverse.
To a 4 dimensional creature our universe would appear flat in a manner of speaking. Have you ever seen a hypercube? It's a 3 dimensional object that is the shadow of a four dimensional cube. Some people can project the hypercube back and visualize the 4D "thing" that created the 3D shadow. So when you get into the universe and what it is expanding into you enter a realm we can't comprehend because we are "trapped" in 3 dimensions. We cannot conceive of the idea that our space is being created as the universe expands. To us the universe is infinite. Always has been and always will be. Much in the same way to a 2 dimensional creature on a sphere their universe will seem infinite. But to a 3D creature viewing, it is easily seen simply as a sphere, not infinite at all.
So you have to be careful when applying 3d physics to 4d or higher problems.