Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Making Connections

It is funny how the brain works. I like absorbing as many different things as I can in my everyday life. Sure, I read The Comics Journal, Write Now, and Draw!, but I also read Make, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist (two weeks in and I am overwhelmed by the amount of information it presents). All of these reading sources end up reinforcing the other in some way. For example, I have an idea for a sci-fi comic that I’m fleshing out (not actively – just taking notes). One of the big things I want to get predicted well in this story is where automobiles are going. Last night, I received my latest issue of Make in the mail, and it had a large chunk devoted to EV(Electronic Vehicle) modders who then run their rides down the quarter mile to prove how fast a car running solely on batteries can go (which turns out to be pretty goddamn fast – a two ton postal truck running only on electricity did the run in 12 seconds).

Many of the builders said that the Prius is neat and all, but they didn’t understand why Toyota didn’t make it a plug-in car, so you could recharge your batteries at night versus using a gasoline engine like the current crop of hybrids. Then I remembered reading an article in The Economist about the big push in Congress for that exact proposal – plug-in energy for cars. This techonology will most likely reach the market in some form, especially with the number of energy companies supporting it. And from the Make article, it really isn’t that hard to do (minus some drawbacks of course – I don’t know if I would do this living in the Midwest for weather related reasons).

Another recent connection was when I finished reading the latest volume of Samurai Executioner; I know it will be ending soon, and I was wondering if it would end with Asa’s duel with Itto Ogami, which was depicted in a volume of Lone Wolf & Cub. Suddenly, I had music from the GZA’s Liquid Swords album running through my head, which samples heavily from the movie Shogun Assassin, which is the film version of Lone Wolf & Cub. On top of that, I remembered that Denys Cowan did the cover art for the Liquid Swords album, and he was one of the main artists for DC’s experimental multicultural superhero line, Milestone Media, of which I have several comics from which are lurking somewhere in my longboxes. Follow all of that?

I get quite a few headaches…

Tuesday February 7, 2006    

zach
Feb 9, 10:24 PM

# 1

Impressive. Nothing else to say.

Tim Lenon
Feb 11, 01:04 PM

# 2

A big problem with the “Plug in” concept is most garages, let alone homes in general, do not have the capability to hooking up the needed power.

More than likely the feed will be something like a NEMA 14-30R 240 volt plug in the garage (Some houses have them for the older electric dryers, or you can see them in farm garages for welders). It is an expensive install from an electrician, and your house’s fuse/breaker box probably will not have an open set of drops available to fulfill the need.

This also does not go the step to addressing if the local transformer will handle multiple houses pulling that big of load.

Tim out West
Feb 13, 12:06 PM

# 3

Yeah.. besides, you not shifting away from energy consumption, you are just consuming a different form that must be generated from somewhere..

Max
Feb 13, 01:20 PM

# 4

First off, here’s the article from The Economist.

Yeah.. besides, you not shifting away from energy consumption, you are just consuming a different form that must be generated from somewhere.

Um, that’s the point (get off oil). With the new nuclear powerplant initiative, I don’t necessarily see a problem with this. Even if you are burning fossil fuels to produce the power, a power plant will produce cleaner emissions and more efficient power than a combustion engine.

A big problem with the “Plug in” concept is most garages, let alone homes in general, do not have the capability to hooking up the needed power.

From what I’ve read, a wall outlet will do. Don’t get me wrong though; there are considerable costs involved in converting a car for this, even an existing hybrid like the Prius. Not to mention not having the convenience of say… heat. Or air conditioning for that matter. It is possible though, and there seems to be some momentum behind it.

Remember, I don’t really care one way or the other how this shakes out :) I’m just interested in it from a science fiction perspective. If none of it comes true, it probably isn’t going to make the story any less enjoyable.

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