The simple answer is !YES!
Gravity is stored/potential energy.
To understand this,you have to think way back in time,to when the universe was created.
How do we prove that gravity is a stored/potential energy ?,well that is easy.
First we must abide by the known laws of physics,which state-->energy can be neither created nor destroyed-but only transformed from one state to another.
For this thought experiment,we are going to use two earth sized planets that have the same mass.
Our point of reference will be one of those planets,where it remains motionless in space.
The second planet is heading toward the first planet at a rate of 100 meters a second.
The motionless planet is said to have no kinetic energy,but as the second planet is traveling toward us at 100 meters a second,it will be said to have X amount of kinetic energy.
As the second planet moves closer to the first planet,it's speed increases.
At the same time,the once motionless planet has now started to move toward the second planet,due to the gravitational attraction of masses.
So not only has the kinetic energy value of the second planet increased,the first planet also now has kinetic energy.
As the two planets get closer and closer,the kinetic energy value of the two planets increases.
When the two planets collide,they dissipate many more times the energy than the second planet had at the beginning of the gravitational pull process between the two.
So,if energy cannot be created,and the dissipated energy by the collision of the two planets was far greater than that of the second planets kinetic energy at the start of the process,this can only mean that the extra energy was stored within the two planet's,and that energy was stored as gravity it self.
It should also be noted that this is a non exhaustible/infinite energy source.
What i mean to say is-if a device was invented that produced an output energy,where using only the gravitational stored energy as it's input,and where none of the earths mass was ejected into space,the gravitational force would remain a constant--regardless of the work done by the output of the device.
Wouldn't it be great if we could switch the gravitational force on and off as we wished,or some how invert that force when we needed to do so.
Brad
Never let your schooling get in the way of your education.