To me it seems a massive amount of money to prove complex equations and theories but with little practical potential.
Poppycock! Suppose they had said the same about the voyages of Columbus? Or the development of the jet engine? Or anything!
These types of experiments will prove or disprove certain theories. If they prove say the existence of the Higgs Boson this, in time, could lead to the exploiting these zero point energy fields. When that happens, we'll have unlimited power - literally enough power to bend space and time making theoretical modes of transport like warp drives (which are
theoretically possible - given enough power) possible. Of course that is a LONG way off, but give it a 1000 years and as long as we don't nuke ourselves into oblivion, die of some horrible bug or get so over populated that we can't feed ourselves (nature will sort this out) then I reckon we'll be zapping around the galaxy "faster" than light.....all thanks to experiments like this.
However, we could of course do nothing....