Engineering

Erosion at Ocean Beach could send sewage into the sea

Could "Thrashed" Ocean Beach Become a Blissful Playland?

Nice, but it could be better...​Imagine a dense, beautiful city bordered by a sandy, public beach.Now if you're Los Angeles, you will see palm trees, basketball and volleyball courts, cafes, bars, galleries, ice cream parlors, and surf shops. It's paradise. Go to San Francisco, and you will see Oc ... More >>

Deflating the Social Media Hot Air Balloon

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Not a revolutionary​Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and their ilk -- standard bearers for the ill-defined phenomenon known as "social media" that is now supposed to be the future of the Web -- are having a tough time these days in the thinking person's press.Over the past f ... More >>

Engineer: Century-Old Pipes Bursting From Old Age Won't Survive Quake

Wait! We're not ready! ​You don't need to be a top-flight engineer to figure that a century-old water main that crumbled on its own over the weekend turning SoMa into a swamp would not have survived a strong earthquake. Chris Poland, however, is a top-flight engineer, and he confirmed it -- the ci ... More >>

S.F. Water Main Rupture Symptomatic of Trillion-Dollar National Problem

Eruptions of water are more picturesque in Yellowstone Park than South of Market​Here's a reassuring thought -- yes, the city does have a program in place to replace its oldest and most vulnerable water mains. Here's a less reassuring thought: A 100-year-old water main burst over the weekend, floo ... More >>

Bridge Expert: I'll Still Drive Bay Bridge -- But Break Is Baffling

​Whenever something goes wrong with a bridge here or elsewhere, one of the first people we call is Mark Ketchum -- one of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California's designated experts on bridges. So, for what it's worth, Ketchum said he will unhesitatingly drive his car across t ... More >>

State Not Ready to Shut Down Mirant Power Plant Just Yet

​City clean power activists and politicos were split in their reactions to the outcome of a state power regulatory body meeting today in Folsom, as San Francisco's plans to shutter the Mirant power plant "irrevocably" by 2010 took something of a hit. While Cal-ISO -- the state body that determines ... More >>

Bay Bridge Rupture Reminiscent of Carquinez Eyebar Failure in 1970s

The 1927 Carquinez Bridge also had issues with eyebars -- and aging​The Bay Bridge isn't the first local aging span to have problems with torn and failing eyebars. Yet the low traffic load and easy alternate route available to the engineers who remedied the last situation aren't applicable when it ... More >>

Double Rock Projects Murder Victim Remembered as Loving Father, Inspirational Student

Courtesy Dion WilsonMichael Bailey​It was a sad day at Southern University Monday as news rippled across campus that a man who, by any measure, should have been on the school's brochures, was instead dead in San Francisco. SF Weekly has written a bit on Michael Bailey, the 26-year-old electrical e ... More >>

We're Putting Our Money on 'Jumping the Box' as Cause of Massive Bayview Warehouse Fire

​Firefighters expect to remain outside a series of smoldering Bayview warehouses throughout the morning, spraying water on a blaze reported yesterday. The instability of the burned-out structures has kept firefighters from entering -- so no one knows exactly how much marijuana might be underfoot. ... More >>

No Smoking: City Attorney Announces Settlement to Shut Mirant Potrero Power Plant 'Irrevocably' By 2010

Joe EskenaziCity Attorney Dennis Herrera delivers the big news, backed by (from left) PUC head Ed Harrington, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, and former Board of Supes President Aaron Peskin​The answer has been revealed to the "mystery settlement" announced yesterday by City Attorney Dennis Herrera ... More >>

"You Go Down to Moscone Convention Facilities. It's Compostable." And Other Gavin Newsom Environmental Insights from the State of the City Address

Does Gavin Newsom turn into Stalin when the moon is full? By Benjamin Wachs (This is State of the Citysode III: The Environment. Click here for Part II: Education, and Part 1: Health Care) 00:00 - Gavin begins philosophically. "I like to say that the world's consumption is the sum of all loc ... More >>

Public Power Grab

Why some "progressives" are putting energy into a bad idea.

Developments in Shaky Town

Have developers killed the possibility of higher seismic standards for new high-rises?

Hayward Fault Ready to Rock the East Bay, Nerds Warn Today at Moscone

Have developers killed the possibility of higher seismic standards for new high-rises?

Quiet! We’re On the Air

Have developers killed the possibility of higher seismic standards for new high-rises?

Carquinez Bridge Shares Design of Minneapolis' I-35, Collapse Unlikely, Local Expert Says

Have developers killed the possibility of higher seismic standards for new high-rises?

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Hard to Be Really Green

Let's scrap the city's weak, pale-green environmental standards and actually take the total environment into account

A Bridge Too Costly

The city's way of contracting out public works construction is broken — so much so that companies are not bidding on important municipal projects and that could cost us billions

Bridge Out

A look at the comically delayed Fourth Street drawbridge project, and how the city's Byzantine contracting system costs millions

Best Welding Supplies

A look at the comically delayed Fourth Street drawbridge project, and how the city's Byzantine contracting system costs millions

A Bridge Too Weak?

A UC Berkeley professor believes the unique new Bay Bridge design is fatally flawed

War Torn

Despite their hatred of Saddam Hussein, many Iraqis living in the U.S. oppose Bush's war

The Call of Afghanistan

Young Afghan-American professionals pledge to return to their homeland to rebuild a war-ravaged nation

Dirty Pool

As the Bayview waits for a rebuilt MLK pool, the project, a stated mayoral priority, keeps gobbling money and time--making it the prototypical city contracting fiasco.

Letters to the Editor

Power Point;The Chronicle Chronicles;Outlawing Landlords and Other Amusements

Gray Skies

If Gov. Davis has his way, California soon will have dozens of new power plants -- a lot of them in the wrong places, some of them unnecessary, and very, very few of them based on renewable energy

Running on Empty

Detroit automakers have spent millions attempting to unplug California's effort to put electric cars on the road. And so far, Detroit's succeeding.

Contract Killings

How the state's contracts with crucial electric power providers actually encourage them to gouge us

Delusions of Power

Is it smart to jump into the Bay Guardian's version of public power, without even studying whether it will save money?

Dim Bulbs

Greedy out-of-state profiteers make easy targets, but the real villains of California's energy debacle are the ones under the state capitol dome.

Delete the Sea Walls

To save Ocean Beach, the city needs to edit a century of mistakes and move the Great Highway inland

San Francisco International Airpork

How the SFO construction program went $1 billion over budget. Yes, billion. With a B.

Small Wonders

Local scientists are shrinking chips and wires to atomic scale, revolutionizing the electronics industry. But most of the nanotechnological advances you've read about are outsized hype.

Fecal Matters

When it comes to sewers, San Francisco just can't get its shit together

Between a Rock and a ... Rock

Environmental testing in the Presidio may be a Sisyphean task

A Couple of Clowns

Environmental testing in the Presidio may be a Sisyphean task

S.F. gets off the crapper

Environmental testing in the Presidio may be a Sisyphean task