>Imagine the implications for things like space travel if you could siphon power off a few stars and power an absurdly large thruster, without the weight penalty of carrying all of the fuel.

Oh, it means much more than that. Again this depends on whether or not I've understood the article correctly. But if it does become possible to extract energy, from a vacuum, where said energy originally comes from "somewhere else", i.e., somewhere else in the same universe...then fuel itself becomes obsolete.

If you could convert said extracted energy into electricity or hot gases, you could have:

• Electric road vehicles that never need replacement batteries or charging.

• Aircraft and jet engines that never need fuel.

• Virtually unlimited supplies of electricity for residential, commercial and industrial purposes. Including 3-d printing.

• Virtually unlimited supplies of high-voltage, high temperature arc furnaces to safely incinerate regular garbage and many kinds of hazardous organic waste.