1.21 Gigawatts! A Look at Energy in Film

If you’re a fan of the wide-eyed Doc Brown in Back to the Future or the type who’s curious how many megawatts it took to blow up Alderaan in Star Wars, you’ll want to check out a special show airing on public television in Austin tonight, Energy at the Movies.

Michael Webber, who leads the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin, takes a look at the last seventy years of film and how they portray issues of energy. It’s a lecture he’s been giving for several years, and is now even a class at UT. On the list of films are classics like Deliverance (which involves hydroelectric power) and Zoolander (coal mining) and Syriana (oil).

You can catch Energy at the Movies tonight in Austin at 8 p.m. on KLRU (Channel 255, Time Warner Cable; Channel 284, Grande Communications; Channel 18-3 Over the Air), and again Sunday at 1 a.m. and 2 p.m.

You can read previous stories on the Webber Energy Group here.