can anyone find a problem with this use of faraday's law?  See
http://www.inventor1-y2k.com/newpage5.htm

Faraday's Law basically is that to induce a current in a wire/coil
with a magnetic field either the magnetic field has to be changing, on
the wire/coil must be moving relative to the field.

I am not sure I completely understand the patent you refer to, it
seems to be a bit vague.  But I think what they are trying to say is
that they are using a shield to modify a static magnet field into a
changing one.  And therefore induce an electrical current in the coil.

However moving the shield into position is going to be dampered by
eddy currents.   So the energy required to move the shield is going to
be greater than energy generated by the device.