It takes Hogarth to pull down a massive off-switch to disconnect and save Iron Giant and protect grid assets.
Steve Mitnick is Editor-in-Chief of Public Utilities Fortnightly and author of the book “Lines Down: How We Pay, Use, Value Grid Electricity Amid the Storm.”
"The Prestige" was a 2006 thriller about the cutthroat competition between magicians including the use of teleportation. The star-studded cast directed by Christopher Nolan included Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson. And in the role of Nikola Tesla, who creates a teleportation device, David Bowie in his final picture.
In the film, the "war of currents" between Tesla and Thomas Edison, alternating versus direct current, is a parallel rivalry to that of the magicians. One scene has a dialogue in which one of the magicians is amazed that the distance of ten or fifteen miles separates electric generator and lights. During the war of currents, the efficiency of transmitting alternating current over distances was a critical advantage.
Though Tesla manages to do this in the film without transmission and distribution lines. Imagine the impact on siting if this was possible.
Tesla and Edison have been depicted in a number of films over the years. "The Secret of Nikola Tesla" was a 1980 biography made in Yugoslavia. Tesla was born in Serbia.
The great Orson Welles co-starred in that one, playing the financier J.P. Morgan who funded Tesla for a while. Welles was sixty-five when the film was shot. Why did Welles appear in a relatively obscure Yugoslav film? Probably didn't hurt that his Croatian girlfriend Oja Kodar had a part too.