Top 10 Movies that Use Appropriate/Renewable Technologies
by Catherine LaineNovember 4th, 2006
A little whimsy for a Friday afternoon.
After years of being massive sci-fi fans, we’ve noticed the preponderance of appropriate technologies in movies. Most of the flicks are regrettably post-apocalyptic. Harumph, I say. It really shouldn’t take nuclear armageddon to make rain water catchment a sensible idea.
Here is our Top 10
10. Lord of the Rings: The elves had sustainable building down pat
9. Matrix: Zion has got to be an earthship
8. On the Beach: Biodiesel
7. Pitch Black: Solar Vehicle (actually it’s an ATV)
6. 28 Days Later: When the zombies attack, the windmills will still work
5. Star Wars: Self-supporting earthen domes on Tatooine
4. Mosquito Coast: He may have been crazy, but solar fridges are a good idea
3. Waterworld: Water desalinization and perhaps biogas
2. Dune: All sorts of ingenious water recycling/harvesting
1. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: Biodigesters
While cold fusion is not an appropriate technology, I think the fusionmatic 2050 (or whatever it was) at the end of Back to the Future should get an honorable mention for creative use of trash.
Update:Also in the Heart of Gold episode of Firefly, the ladies’ home is covered in “solar sheeting”. I miss Firefly. Grrrr arggh.
November 7th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Cat, your post made me reminisce: When the MIT charcoal project was in its infancy, I would tell everyone who’d listen that the process we’d worked out was in fact just like the Mr. Fusion technology in Back to the Future II. Add whatever you want, scraps of food, sugarcane waste, banana peels — and get out usable fuel! It took some effort to get people excited about turning “trash” into cooking fuel four years ago, but it’s not quite as hard these days.
However, the charcoal project will always be the AT Mr. Fusion to me.
Sweet site, by the way.
November 7th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Thanks Shawn.
It’s so great that it’s getting easier bit by bit. I reckon that in 50 years time, people will think “They would throw all that away? How silly”. We can only hope that the idea that one’s trash can have further uses will not always be so sci-fi either here or in the developing world. Which reminds me, I’ve got to get “Cradle to Cradle”. How can I resist an “infinitely recyclable” plastic book?