Experiments with QED variance?

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I'm curious on something; just started reading some really interesting stuff on Quantum Physics, especially Quantum Electro Dynamic vacuum energy. Supposedly a cubic meter of 'dead' space has 10^113 joules of potential energy in any given instant. I don't know if I'm too green on the topic to understand this right but it sounds like a lot of this might essentially be static wave energy?

My question, have any experiments been done, ways devised to actually measure QED rather than just treat it as theory, and if so, have any studies been made into variances that might occur as we throw visual observations of the universe against the wall?

This sounds really interesting. Any chance you could post a link to a source?

Is this related to the idea of virtual particles?

I've heard of the Casimir effect where somehow a very small force results from energy fluctuations in a electromagnetic fields. I believe this due to virtual photons constantly flashing in and out of existence.

I really wish I was more knowledgeable on topics like this. If you don't get many responses you can try posting on askscience subreddit, they have a lot of people that study this kind of stuff for a living.

The energy exists in such form as mentioned. However the big CATCH is that you can't get to it in any publicly known way. Figure that out and make all energy companies cry..

Not to be pathetic but this was my verification:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

You could say I'm reading a book that's likely a bit controversial and there are parts in it that make intuitive sense based on the claims but as I go I've wanted to make sure that I can pick real QP from agenda (if there is any).

I might have answered my own question reading a bit further as it seems like the 10 ^113 joules is implied and axiomatic based on current QP laws rather than being something observed or observable and to even observe it from what I'm understanding would dirt up the whole idea of testing it for indirect changes (not from observation).

I've try asking the ultra-noob question though to show how dumb I am. Is the implication with that number (10^113) that its a measure of concentration for all non-collapsed wave functions?