The San Francisco Citizen

No, not that Culturebus, “your African American heritage resource”. This CultureBus, the big yellow 74x route in San Francisco, the one that shuttles you around various museums and stuff.

At $7 a throw, you probably won’t see too many local strap-hangers on board, but oh well. This is a pretty simple system to navigate, so that’s good. All aboard!

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Yerba Buena Cultural Institutions

California Historical Society
Cartoon Art Museum
Contemporary Jewish Museum
GLBT Historical Society
Museum of the African Diaspora
Museum of Craft and Folk Art
SFMOMA
SF Camerwork
The Society of California Pioneers
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Zeum

Galleries

111 Minna Gallery
Aurobora Press
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions
Braunstein/Quay Gallery
Catharine Clark Gallery
Chandler Fine Art
Crown Point Press
Modernism
RayKo Photo Center
Sculpturesite Gallery
The Artists Alley
Varnish Fine Art
Visual Aid
Other Yerba Buena Arts and Events

Civic Center

Asian Art Museum
City Hall

Golden Gate Park Museum Concourse

de Young Museum
California Academy of Sciences
Japanese Tea Garden
Conservatory of Flowers

Here’s what you’ll see tooling around San Francisco’s Mission District these days - an aging Mercedes Benz 300 SD sedan that’s been converted by Oakland’s Veg Rev to run on vegetable oil in a process called “vehicle fuel reassignment.”

So instead of inky diesel soot covering the back of this OM617 W126, we see vegetable oil. See the conversion process courtesy of this nifty video. (But just ignore a laughable MTV-style intro from the abysmal Current TV network.) The car shown can’t accelerate quickly, but in many ways is superior to (and costs about $115,000 less than) the quick, all-electric Tesla Roadster.

Of course the best way to spread the word about veggie power is to fashion a bumper sticker to make Toyota Prius owners feel bad:

Click to enlarge.

“YOUR NEW HYBRID USES GAS - HA!”

From Teh Mission with love…

Is this what you want to encounter on the streets of San Francisco - a mobile billboard from Do It Outdoors? You see, S.F. is having a tussle over whether we should have new fixed billboards in town, but apparently there’s nothing stopping new mobile billboards from travelling all over the place.  

Rest assured, this trucking company is saying, “We Do It Green.” [Please note yet another delightful double entendre from Do It Outdoors - what a playful corporation!]. Brace yourself for more information about carbon offsets. That means the more they drive the better things get, just as the more water we import from the South Pacific, the better off we are, cause like Fiji Water is carbon negative or something.

From Vegas with love, on Hayes Street. Click to expand: 

There’s lots to ponder as you drive around sipping your MGD Light - like how getting your fossil fuel hydrocarbons from coal really sucks, but petroleum, well petroleum that powers trucks, that must be A-OK.

Is that what they call greenwashing?

The mind boggles…. 

It seems Volkswagen is making progress with fuel cell technology. VW dropped by a few places in the bay area this past week to show off their latest effort in the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. VW just happens to be introducing their “Tiguan” (tiger plus iguana, in German) crossover vehicle soon, so why not put this experimental propulsion technology in the latest platform?

CNET was there at the W Hotel and they took some photos. Wired also took some shots, plus they have a nice rundown on the whole affair.

This Tiguan uses hydrogen fuel cell technology, which differs from what BMW has done with hydrogen so far. BMW’s approach is to just modify a typical internal combustion engine so that it will accept either gasoline or hydrogen. Comedian Jay Leno explains. But this method comes with its downsides.

VW was also pleased to show off the new fifty-state-legal Jetta TDI diesel. You can’t hardly tell it’s a diesel. Look to see lots of these TDI cars on the streets of San Francisco soon. It seems everyone who owns a TDI just raves about this high-MPG technology.

Invizabul driver in the SOMA. This new 50-state-legal Jetta has plenty of power and very high MPG - perhaps you’d prefer this VW over the slightly larger and more expensive Toyota Prius hybrid?   

And let’s not forget about the Jetta TDI Cup Race, which shows the young’uns that diesel engines have come a long way since the bad old days. It’s the first clean diesel racing series evah.

A  speedy TDI at the yummy XYZ restaurant in San Francisco.

VW says that their hydrogen fuel cell technology is seven to ten years away from being available. The sooner the better.