Oct. 21--October 21, 2015: "Back to the Future Day" has finally arrived.
The Internet is abuzz with what the 1989 film "Back to the Future II" got right about the future -- flat-screen TVs and handheld devices -- and what it got wrong -- hoverboards don't exist, no matter what is marketed by those peddlers of two-wheeled skateboards that look like mini-Segways without the pedestal.
One of the most interesting prognostications in "Back to the Future II" was the ability to make energy out of trash. In the film, Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor turns kitchen garbage into fuel for the DeLorean time machine. Waste biofuel is a reality, though not as directly as the table-to-tank variety.
Waste management companies are sifting out plant-based matter from the trash heap, breaking down the cellulose into sugar, then turning the sugar into ethanol.
It's a concept Toyota has been touting in promoting the Mirai, its hydrogen fuel cell car that went on sale Wednesday in California. Timed to air on this "BTTF" date, Episode 4 of the Mirai "Fueled by Everything" campaign reunites "BTTF" heroes Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in the present day reality as real people.
An aeromechanical engineer and "BTTF" fanboy, Misha, arrives to meet Fox and Lloyd in the off-road rally version of the Toyota Tacoma, with KC lights and roll bar. It's strikingly similar to the Toyota HiLux Marty finds in his garage in 1985 after saving the future in 1955 by making sure his parents, uh, do what parents do to make a family.
Misha picks up trash in familiar movie places, including the Universal Studios backlot home to the Courthouse Square, then heads to a model laboratory, where he explains to Lloyd and Fox that the trash is collected at the landfill, decomposes and produces biogas, which is then received by a power plant that combines it with natural gas to make hydrogen.
"Hydrogen?" Lloyd asks, dipping into Doc mode. "Are you telling me this sucker is nuclear?"
Great Scott, it's electrical.
It's a cute spot, if not a little bittersweet.
The Mirai is limited to California, which is the only state with any semblance of a hydrogen fueling station infrastructure. It has 13 research stations and nine public stations, with 18 planned in the next few years, according to the California EPA.
As far as the arrival of the future, we may have to wait until next year -- like the Cubs, who were forecast to win the World Series in "Back to the Future II" (director Robert Zemeckis was born and raised in Chicago) but who will fight against postseason elimination Wednesday night.
rduffer@chicagotribune.com
