Something for nothing?

The New Scientist publication suggests, this week, that the latest "perpetual motion" machine has failed its first public demonstration.
That might be a disappointment for those seeking a solution for the world's energy production problems, but the more cynical of us are probably not surprised.
An Irish start-up company, so the New Scientist reports, announced a year or so ago that it had solved the problem of perpetual energy generation. The company asked for scientists to attempt to prove its proposition wrong. Recently, however, a working model of the machine was put on display.
It just sat there. It didn't work!
Now, all that does read a bit like just another joke against the Irish I suppose, but I can't imagine "New Scientist" promoting it. In any case, optimists have, since the invention of the wheel (or further back) dreamed and plannned and tried to produce a system where we can get our energy for nothing. We should wish them all the best of luck!
But logic seems to point me back to that unarguable pronouncement from my schooldays - "action and re-action are equal and opposite".
It seems that, as far as energy is concerned at least, "nobody gets anything for nothing"!