Is this not analogous to storing energy in the EM fields within the CPU?
Curiously there is a minimum cost to erase a single bit that no system can go below. It’s extremely small, billions of times smaller than the amount of energy our CPUs use every time they erase a bit, but it exists. Look up Landauer’s Limit. There is a similar limit on the maximum amount of information stored in a system which is proportional to the surface area of the sphere that the information fits inside. Exceed that limit and you’ll form a black hole. We’re no where near that limit yet either.
This is incorrect in both directions.
Only transistors whose inputs are changing have to discharge their capacitance.
This means that if the inputs don't change nothing happens, but if the inputs change then the changes propagate through the circuit to the next flip flop, possibly creating a cascade of changes.
Consider this pathological scenario: The first input changes, then a delay happens, then the second input changes so that the output remains the same. This is known as a "glitch". Even though the output hasn't changed, the downstream transistors see their input switch twice. Glitches propagate through transistors and not only that, if another unfortunate timing event happens, you can end up with accumulating multiple glitches. A single transistor may switch multiple times in a clock cycle.
Switching transistors costs energy, which means you end up with "parasitic" power consumption that doesn't contribute to the calculated output.
Note also that discharging the internal capacitance of a transistor, and the heat generated by current through the transistor’s internal resistance, are both costs over and above the fundamental cost of erasing a bit. Transistors can be made more efficient by reducing those additional costs, but Landauer discovered that nothing can reduce the fundamental cost of erasing a bit.
Then again most of us do not have particle accelerator nearby looking for Higgs boson.
