An explosion and fire in San Francisco has led authorities to advise residents to stay indoors

An underground explosion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood has prompted fire officials to issue a shelter-in-place warning this afternoon because of toxic smoke caused by an underground explosion and fire.

About 4,500 Pacific Gas and Electric customers lost power shortly after 11:30 a.m., when an underground explosion occurred in the area of Polk and O’Farrell streets.

Firefighters used CO2 to suppress the flames, but PG&E requested they stop using it in order to allow the equipment to fail completely, fire Lt. Mindy Talmadge said.

But when firefighters stopped using the CO2, a black cloud of smoke seven stories high rose from the manhole. At one point around 1:15 p.m., flames 10 feet high shot from the manhole.

The downtown area has been seriously impacted as buildings with smoke detectors automatically have shutdown systems including elevators.

I certainly hope that the restructuring of GM will bring forward engine technology such as this awesome diesel V8:

These features give the new engine an unusually small, light, and narrow form factor for a diesel, with the ability to fit anywhere the current LS-series gasoline V-8 will go, according to GM sources. Potential applications mentioned so far include pickup trucks under 8,600 pounds GVW and the Hummer H2. While no passenger-car plans have been revealed so far, the new engine’s small footprint allows GM “the flexibility to introduce this engine in a wide variety of vehicle applications should there be future market demand,” according to GM statements. [And what a potential hot rod engine swap candidate! -Ed.

Nevermind the stupid Hummer box, which are being sold to the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company anyway, this is the sort of thing that should be dropped into aerodynamic new designs.

BMW is one of the least economy-minded car companies, mostly toying with hydrogen pipe dreams, so when they announce a new diesel engine you know it is going to be a performance option. Popular Mechanics practically swoons over the 2009 BMW 335d Diesel Sport Sedan

Diesel and high performance don’t normally sit in the same sentence, but take a look at the following figures: 155 mph, 0 to 62 mph in 6.0 seconds and 428 lb.-ft. of torque. Compare those numbers with these: 155 mph, 0 to 62 mph in 5.6 seconds and 295 lb.-ft. of torque. Okay, so which one is the performance car? The first set of figures apply to the 335d, the second to its gasoline alternative. Away from the test track the turbodiesel’s midrange torque and flexibility would absolutely smoke (but not really, this is a “clean diesel”) its gasoline counterpart. And the 335d is not only the faster point-to-point car, it also gives you a 10 mpg (U.S.) boost over the the gas one. The 335d returns an NEDC combined economy of 35.1 mpg against the 335i’s 25.6 mpg. In practice, the big diesel gives around 33 mpg in our mixed running, partly because the performance is just so intoxicating and almost impossible to resist.

Yes, yes…as expected. Thank you Popular Mechanics. I hope more and more see the potential benefits of diesel technology and invest properly so we can put the whole ethanol and hydrogen nonsense to bed. I’m not opposed to ethanol, in fact I think it is an interesting additive or ingredient for other fuels, but it and hydrogen have far too many issues to be a serious solution. Diesel is so much more than just a fuel.

Here is a really cheesy example (pun intended) of what I mean. Consumers often have a hard time accepting change. When they know hot dogs (the meat equivalent of gasoline vehicle engines) you have to make “not-dogs” to sell them on the idea of vegetables. This brings about comparisons of meat and vegetables on a very narrow plane of hotdog qualities, instead of opening up the possibilities. Ok, now here’s the cheesy part. Imagine instead if you tried to introduce them to sag paneer…in other words diesel could completely change the way we look at fuel production and distribution, let alone performance and efficiency, but consumers have to be able to learn to eat something that doesn’t look, feel, taste like a hotdog. Speaking of which, 35mpg? Shame on you BMW. That’s barely sufficient under the coming efficiency guidelines.