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In this question, expansion of space is considered, and it is explained that gravity and electomagnetic forces prevent matter from expanding.

The idea I get in my head is something like a weight attached to a spring, dragged behind a car. The movement of the car will try to expand the distance between the weight and the car, but the spring (gravity, or other forces) will counteract the drag force created by the ground.

Thus, I imagine that if we have a very long string of say nano-tubes in space, the expansion of space will assert a pull on both ends, but it will most likely not be strong enough to break the string.

This tension however, can it be used to produce energy, perhaps something like piezoelectricity?

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Per Alexandersson
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    possible duplicate of extracting energy from cosmological expansion – John Rennie Sep 01 '14 at 10:18
  • The "tension" between galaxies, could it be exploited, would break even the strongest material, since the velocities with which most of them are retreating is higher than the speed of sound in any known material. That, of course, is a different question from whether there is an actual energy source driving this phenomenon. – CuriousOne Sep 01 '14 at 10:32
  • @CuriousOne: Sure, but there would be some sweet-spot then, where the tension is strong, but not too strong. – Per Alexandersson Sep 01 '14 at 10:33
  • @PerAlexandersson: In that case you could extract the kinetic energy of those objects (if you had a non-gravitating "string", that is) and, for a positive cosmological constant also gain some energy from the acceleration (assuming, that the universe as a whole obeys energy conservation, which many seem to question). In practice, of course, the distances are far too large and you are lacking the string... – CuriousOne Sep 01 '14 at 10:38

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