By Marcus Rodriguez
Staff Photographer

New neighbors from prehistoric times have moved in to the Science Hall building.

The Earth sciences department’s new exhibit “Walk Through the Story of Time and Life” opened on April 3 and introduced City College students to new scientific discoveries, courtesy of the California Academy of Sciences.

Located throughout the basement and first three floors of the building is an expansive exhibit tracing the evolution of life from the Big Bang to the emergence of the dinosaurs, the development of mammals and present-day life.

The exhibit is the result of five years of work from the Earth sciences department. It was spearheaded by Earth science professor Katryn Wiese, with the cooperation and financial support of City College.

“This was a big vision and took a lot of people to sustain,” Wiese said, “and I can’t thank everyone enough for all their hard work. We accomplished it not because always knew what to do, but simply because we wanted to.”

When the Academy began to plan its new facilities, some of its older pieces and exhibits were to be put in storage or just needed a home. Wiese managed to acquire many of the items that needed a new home.

City College Chancellor Dr. Don Q. Griffin, who helped to organize the funding for the project, said that there was total cooperation all around.

“No one said no,” he said. “From top to bottom everyone understood how important this is, and how much of a tremendous legacy this is for our students, our faculty and our community.”

Darrel Hess, Earth sciences department chair, said City College is one of the few community colleges to have such a rare display. “I’m enormously proud to have such a unique exhibit at our campus,” he said.

Included in the exhibit are over 100 visual information panels and posters, three murals, and six dinosaur fossils casts, all donated or on loan from the Academy.

The full-size casts include the Dilophosaurus, a bipedal carnivore that lived about 150 million years ago and is most famous for its cameo in the movie “Jurassic Park”.

Other fossil casts include the Plesiosaur, cast from one of only a few existing fossils of the sea swimming reptile. This dinosaur was later believed to have inspired the myth of the Loch Ness monster.

Sara Anderson, 42, brought her five-year-old son Cooper and some of his friends to the exhibit. “It’s absolutely great to have such a unique exhibit for our kids to come and experience right here on our campus,” she said.

The exhibit can be viewed by the public during normal school hours.

The City College Board of Trustees listen to comments about class sponsorship on Aug. 27. DYLAN NOVICKY / THE GUARDSMAN

By Don Clyde
STAFF WRITER

City College began accepting private donations to save courses scheduled to be cut during the spring 2010 term, but has abandoned the idea of attaching the sponsor’s name to rescued classes, according to Chancellor Dr. Don Q. Griffin.

“So far we’ve raised enough money to save about 50 spring [semester] classes. We hope to save at least 100,” Griffin said.

Since California can’t fully support its public education system, City College will probably have to resort to accepting private donations for a few semesters, Griffin said.

“This is something we don’t want to do, but these are not ordinary times,” he said referring to the massive cuts in state funding that every public education institution in California is dealing with.

City College already cut over 200 classes during this fall term and plans to cut over 500 during the next spring term. The drastic cuts will help to close the college’s $18 to $20 million budget shortfall for 2009-2010.

City College offers about 9,800 courses. Total cuts would amount to around eight percent of classes.

Griffin originally proposed that private individuals or companies could pay $6,000 to save a class and get naming rights to it. The novel idea was well received by the public and by City College board members during a June 25 board of trustees meeting. However, there was some concern about giving naming rights to certain institutions.

Questions were raised by board members about complicated vetting procedures to make sure unsuitable    organizations or corporations were not donating money to City College.

“When you take away the naming rights, this policy really starts to look more like an ordinary fund-raising campaign,” said Hal Huntsman, president of the Academic Senate.

Milton Marks III, president of the board of trustees, said naming rights was a sticking point on the board. He added that dropping the controversial naming idea makes private sponsorship more acceptable.

Private sponsorship, while not an ideal solution, was “unfortunately a necessary thing to do,” according to Marks. He also said it doesn’t appear that board approval is a requirement for the private funding move.

“I don’t think there’s legally any regulation that the board has to approve, but we might have to approve this from a political perspective to show that we are behind the chancellor,” Marks said.

Thirty-three year old City College student Aaron Mosby, who is studying small business ownership and automotive technology, said the private sponsorship move was a great idea. He agrees with any plan that would save classes from being cut.

“It’s already too tough to get into classes. Cutting classes discourages students from pursuing an education, and it sends the wrong message,” Mosby said, adding that students, especially those seeking financial aid had enough stacked against them already. He had to drop a summer course because he couldn’t afford the textbooks.
Mosby said if corporations sponsored classes they could have access to a willing pool of interns who could get real, hands-on training.

“It could really prepare us to enter the job market,” he said and walked off to Science Hall to look into getting some training in electrical engineering.

Other students wondered if there might be bias towards certain fields. “Maybe it’s good for technical courses, but how will the humanities [department] fair?,” 26-year-old Stephanie Haney said. Haney, studying health science at City College, said that sponsorships by corporations with deep pockets might opt to save classes in science and technology.

Griffin said most donations so far have been from individual donors who didn’t want to steer their money toward any particular department. Donors have the option to choose which department donations go to, but department faculty will choose which individual classes are saved.

“A lot of people at City College have also been making donations. It’s a re-affirmation that we’re here to serve the student body,” Griffin said.

Be sure to follow our live coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on Prop. 8. There will be events happening all over the country for Prop. 8. The staff will be Twittering live from San Francisco’s Civic Center starting at 9 a.m. Be sure to check back often for updates.

If you know of any places around the city where people can participate in Prop. 8 event let us know by sending us an e-mail via our contact us page.

Follow The Guardsman on Twitter via sfbreakingnews for any breaking news in San Francisco, or at City College.

The Guardsman and City College have gone green for Earth Day 2009. Below are a list of events happening on campus throughout the day. Let us know what you’re doing for Earth Day by leaving comments below or on Twitter with @theguardsman.

Around Campus

9 a.m. – 7 p.m. (4/22 and 4/23) — New compost bins on Ocean campus with student “compost hosts” instructing how to use them.

10:15 a.m. – 2:15 p.m. — Tabling at Ram Plaza, Wellness Center Ampitheater, Cafeteria and area across from the Lunch Box. There will be music from Otto Mobile in Ram Plaza. Enter to win a Chico bags, t-shirts and other prizes by taking the Academic Quizzes or getting a stamped passport.

11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. — Panel Presentation in the Diego Rivera Theatre on Environmental Responsibility in and Around CCSF. Panel includes Bonnie Sherk: A Living Library – our Islais Creek watershed, David Liggett: CCSF’s new buildings, and Carlita Martinez: CCSF recycling programs and new compost bins.

12:30 – 1: 30 p.m. — Speakers at the Wellness Center Ampitheather. There will be speakers from the PUC, Raiwater Harvesting, DOE and Sunset Scavenger.

2:15 – 3 p.m. — Debate on the pros and cons of carbon offsets in the Rosenberg Library Rm. 305.

—–

Films

Below are film showings that will be happening throughout the day. All film showings will be in Rosenberg Library Rm. 305.

9:15 – 11:00 — Ted‟s Talks: short presentations by leading experts on climate change and waste management Discussion moderator: Katryn Wiese, Earth Sciences faculty

11:00 – 11:15 — Story of Stuff 11:15 – 1:00 The Electronic Wasteland (PBS Frontline)

1:00 – 1:15 — Story of Stuff

1:15 – 2:00 — TBA

2:00 – 3:00 — Debate: Pros/Cons of Carbon Offsets

3:00 – 3:15 — Story of Stuff

3:15 – 5:00 — Inconvenient Truth & new Al Gore presentation discussion moderator: Darrel Hess, Earth Sciences faculty

5:00 – 5:15 — Story of Stuff

5:15 – 7:15 — Heat (CBS News; Sixty Minutes)

7:15 – 7:30 — Story of Stuff

7:30 – 9:45 — Oil on Ice [Connects the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to critical decisions about energy policy.] Discussion moderator: David Brown

A display of the different types of student response systems available at City College. STAFF / THE GUARDSMAN

By Vicky Salcido
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

By introducing student response systems in their classrooms, a number of City College instructors have placed the power of silent participation into student’s hands.

The two brands of systems used at City College are Hyper-Interactive Teaching Technology and iclicker.

According to H-ITT’s product description website, SRS’s are two-way wireless systems. Each system is composed of the instructor’s base receiver and individual clickers for each student.

Every battery-operated clicker  has a unique product code, which students must first register to the base system. All information sent from a clicker will be stored in the instructor’s database under that specific student’s number.

Instructors can then ask for feedback on a variety of topics such as attendance, participation surveys and even test questions.

If the instructor chooses to display the results as a histogram, students can relax knowing that all information is anonymous.

Information travels from clickers to the base through either infrared or radio frequency.

Infrared technology requires line-of-sight to the base in order to receive and process results. In contrast, radio frequency clickers do not require line-of-sight because the signal travels in all directions.

Physics department chair David Yee first learned about clickers when he watched a demonstration at the 2006 meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

“At the time it was really very new,” Yee said. “It was kind of just a lot of sales reps who didn’t know many details.”

The concept was so attractive to Yee that he initiated its introduction for his Physics 10 class. Since then, clickers have also been implemented in Physics 2BC and Biology 1A.

“I think it helps a lot,” Yee said. “They get a chance to instantly measure their understanding of the material, and it’s anonymous.”

City College student Miranda May was indifferent about clickers. “In the beginning, there were some problems getting everyone’s clicker on the same channel,” she said. “But once in use there usually were no problems.”

Students can purchase clickers at the City College Bookstore Annex for $35 to $45, depending on the brand.

Currently, all three classes use different brands or technologies of clickers, but Yee hopes to see standardization soon.

“Depending on which clicker the instructor is using, students could have to buy two different clickers in a year,” explained Bookstore Annex manager Kathy Tullius.

Most clickers come with a warranty. At the end of the semester they can be sold back to the Bookstore Annex for a portion of the purchase price.

Larry Whitney (left), who lives at the C.W. Hotel on Folsom Street, receives help hooking up a digital to analog transistion box to his television. MIHAIL MATIKOV / THE GUARDSMAN

By Alex Emslie
STAFF WRITER

Congress has mandated that all television stations cease broadcast of analog signals by June 12, 2009. An estimated 15 million American households who depend on free, over-the-air broadcasts as their only source for local news and emergency information will be affected by the national switch to digital.

Households dependent on OTA broadcasts — those who don’t subscribe to either cable or satellite services — have several choices to prepare for the digital transition.

Most newer televisions have digital tuners built in and will be unaffected by the switch. TV sets with labels that read “Integrated Digital Tuner,” “Digital Tuner Built-In,” “Digital Receiver,” “Digital Tuner,” “DTV,” “ATSC” or “HDTV” can already process digital signals, according to the government Web site dtv.gov. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration encourages consumers to check their owner’s manual or contact their television’s manufacturer if they are unsure.

People who want to keep using older analog TVs can apply for up to two $40 coupons – available through the NTIA’s nationwide coupon program — toward the purchase of a digital to analog converter box. The boxes range from $40 to $80 and are available at most retail electronics stores.

The original Feb. 27 deadline was postponed. “Too many Americans were at risk of losing OTA television service,” said Anna M. Gomez, NTIA’s acting assistant communications and information secretary, in her recent testimony before Congress. Nielsen, which rates TV shows,  estimated in January 6.5 million households were unprepared for the digital transition.

The coupon program ran out of funding Jan. 4, and the waiting list reached of 4.2 million by March 17. The DTV Delay Act changed that deadline to June 12 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided an additional $650 million for the NTIA.

What is the difference between digital and analog TV?

TV signals have been broadcast in analog since primitive prototypes of the first electronic sets appeared in the early 1900s. An analog signal is a continuous electronic wave that can be transmitted either through a wire or over-the-air. The wave length and amplitude of the signal are an electronic copy of whatever information is being transmitted; for example, light or sound.

Digital signals work with only two levels of amplitude, called nodes. Digital is either on or off, high or low, true or false, one or zero and so on.

Digital signals can be compressed more than analog signals. More information can fit into a signal, or channel, which translates to a clearer picture and higher quality sound. Also, while both signals get weaker over long distances, digital remains either on or off. If the signal is strong enough for an antenna to pick up, it will transmit a clear picture regardless of distance.

More OTA channels might become available after the switch to digital is complete. Digital broadcasting allows for multicasting, or the broadcasting of more than one channel within a single signal.

Digital offers more of the radio spectrum, for less

Improvements to picture and sound quality, reception, and the number of channels that are provided by all digital broadcasting will free up some of the limited radio spectrum. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates usage of the radio spectrum through licensing, plans to use the newly freed frequencies for emergency services communication and wireless development.

The DTV transition affects frequencies running from 698-806 megahertz. Those frequencies are currently used by television broadcasters, but they will be made available to emergency communications after June 12.

According to an agency news release, the FCC plans to use portions of the radio spectrum made available by the digital transition to create a “nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network [that] would enable police, fire and medical personnel to communicate with each other in emergencies.”

The First Responders Coalition applauded the FCC’s initiative to use 700 megahertz frequencies to promote interoperability between agencies. “As was tragically evident on September 11, 2001, and again in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the communications systems of public safety departments are not interoperable,” wrote Executive Director Steven Jones in a letter to the FCC. “The most immediate step in solving the interoperability crisis is to reallocate spectrum in the 700 megahertz band from television broadcasters to First Responders as part of the digital television transition.”

By Fleur Bailey
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

With climate change moving at an expeditious pace and much attention being paid to global warming, City College is keeping green job training at the top of the list.

City College is currently in the process of identifying the new programs that will provide practical training to students for employment in solar, wind, energy efficiency and geothermal fields.

The Board of Trustees has passed a resolution to create a Bridge To Green Jobs Program, with an evaluation on the process every three months.

“The Bridge to Green Jobs Program is a bridge training program to teach job force skills,” trustee John Rizzo said. “Things are moving forward. We are meeting people in the city and working with the mayor’s Office of Workforce Development.”

The program will be based at the Southeast campus with the hope to remove barriers to employment, provide opportunities to traditionally under-represented groups and transform undeserved communities.

“We are working on bringing the employers to the table,” trustee Chris Jackson said. “We are meeting in the next few weeks to create employment agreements with solar panel installation companies, bio-diesel companies and grease collecting companies.”

Kristin Charles, dean of grants and resource development at City College is responsible for identifying sources and applying for funding. She hopes the funding for the programs will be available for classes to start in the fall.

“We are looking very closely as there are a lot of stimulus dollars related to green training,” she said. “We are also watching the labor market info as we need to know there’s a place for the students to go once they’re trained.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MCT CAMPUS

By Alex Emslie and Ellen Silk
STAFF WRITER AND NEWS EDITOR

The invention of video games represented a renaissance in the field of entertainment. Games were no longer hindered by the imagination of their players but instead by the artistry of their creators.

The first video game was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann in 1947. It used analog circuitry to control a cathode ray tube beam to position a dot on the screen. The game, patented as the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device in 1948, was inspired by radar displays from World War II.

Brookhaven National Laboratory introduced “Tennis for Two” in 1958. William Higinbotham, the game’s creator and a nuclear physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project , wrote, “It might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors have relevance for society.”

“Tennis for Two” was a tennis court on an oscilloscope screen. The ball, a moving dot, left trails as it bounced to alternating sides of the net. Players served and volleyed using remotes with buttons and rotating dials.

In 1967 Ralph Baer, chief engineer at the defense contractor Sanders Associates, and his team created a game as part of a top secret Brown Box project to use as a U.S. military training tool. The game consisted of two dots chasing each other around the screen. Baer’s team continued improving the technology and also created the very first video game “controller” — a light-gun that would work with the TV system.

Six years later the top secret status was dropped and Sanders Associates licensed the Brown Box to electronics company Magnavox. The box was renamed, redesigned and released as the very first home gaming system — the Magnavox Odyssey.

Steve Russell, while attending MIT in 1961, developed an interactive video game on a mini-computer. Russell’s “Spacewar” inspired two separate breakthroughs in the following decades.

“Galaxy” was one of the first commercial video games. It was built and installed at the Stanford Tresidder student union in September 1971 by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck.

The gameplay in “Galaxy” was based on “Spacewar”  and involved two armed spaceships — “the needle” and “the wedge” — shooting at one another. The ships had limited fuel, missiles and a last-ditch hyperspace option that would place the ship at a random location on the screen.

That same year, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of “Spacewar” and called it “Computer Space.” Nutting Associates bought the game and manufactured 1,500 “Computer Space” machines in November 1971. Although the game was unsuccessful because of its long learning-curve, it is recognized as the first mass-produced video game offered for commercial sale.

The latest version of the popular video game "Madden NFL 09." IMAGE COURTESY OF MCT CAMPUS

Bushnell and Dabney went on to found Atari and released their first major success, “Pong,” in 1972. Atari and Magnavox went on to survive a slump in the video game market in the late 1970s. In 1977 Atari released a cartridge-based console called the Video Computer System, better known as the Atari 2600. The VCS had an arsenal of nine games and quickly became a very popular console.

The 1980s also saw the rise of the home computer, the most popular of which were IBM and Apple Macintosh. Both of these offered new possibilities for video games with better graphics, sound and higher quality resolution.

“The first game I ever played was probably ‘Missile Command’,” said City College computer science major William Eagleton of the Atari 2600. “My dad worked for Atari, so we would get test cartridges.”

On Dec. 7, 1982, Warner Communications’ — Atari’s parent company — stock dropped 32 percent after it was announced that VCS sales did not meet predictions. The following year, many companies who only made games — often called third-party companies — declared bankruptcy, and Atari split into two separate companies. In 1983 it was discovered that Ray Kassar, then head of Atari, was guilty of insider trading. He immediately resigned.

Masayuki Uemura, working for Nintendo, revived the video game in 1985 with the Nintendo Entertainment System. The cartridge system had two controllers with multiple buttons that allowed the player to jump, run and do more with the character on the screen. Two very popular Nintendo games were “Super Mario Brothers” and “Duck Hunt.”

Sega’s Master System, while graphically superior to the NES, failed to make any kind of lasting impression in the U.S. market. When Sega introduced Genisis, the company began an aggressive marketing campaign, not only to customers, but also to developers. Genesis quickly grew popular thanks to their line-up of quality arcade conversions, sports games, and the help of game developer Electronic Arts.

Competition between Nintendo and Sega colored the video game market through the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Sony released Playstation in 1994. The company had grown from a radio repair shop in post WWII Tokyo to a powerful electronics corporation. As of 2008, Sony had sold 140 million Playstation 2 units.

In the ‘90s parents demonstrated they were willing to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade systems and the home console was here to stay.

“I like a lot of the classic games. My favorite game is probably ‘Doom,’” Eagleton said. “Between ‘93 and ‘98 was the golden age of games for me.”

Today’s innovations in video game technology are quantified in generations.

The three major competitors of today’s gaming market — Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3 — challenge each other to create an evermore immersive gaming experience measured by realism of graphics and plots. Gone are the simple days of games like “Pong” and “PacMan,” but the virtual 3D worlds of today wouldn’t be possible without the 2D screens of the past.

By Jessica Luthi
EDITOR IN CHIEF

With the addition of the new Google student e-mail feature, students may have noticed a new change on their WebStars accounts. Currently City College e-mail addresses are not available to all students.

Previously, e-mail addresses were assigned to students only at the request of an instructor. But as of June 2009, all credit students will have access to a City College e-mail address for life, said Doug Re, director of Information Technology Services. He hopes that by fall 2009 every student, including non-credit students, will have access to such an e-mail address. Faculty and staff will also have the option of getting new e-mail, while keeping their current e-mail addresses.

About 2,000 e-mail addresses have already been created as part of a pilot project in January. “They [students] were pretty much picked out of the multimedia department,” Re said. “We have a good working relationship with that department chair and their faculty.”

The new e-mail accounts will be hosted through Google Apps Education Edition, which is a package of applications that include e-mail, word processing and chat, at no cost to City College. Re is hoping all accounts will include additional Google add-ons’ including Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Talk by Fall 2009 semester. Such add-ons are contingent on meetings with key faculty members from Shared Governance Committees, said Re.

E-mail addresses will consist of students’  first initial and the first seven letters of the last name. In case of duplications, a number will be attached to the name. For example, if a student’s name is Betty Peppersmith and another student’s name is Billy Pepperstone, Betty’s e-mail address would be bpeppers@ccsf.edu and Billy’s would be bpepper1@ccsf.edu.

Since October 2008, City College has been working on getting student e-mail accounts. The initial need for such accounts was asserted by the Board of Trustees. “The Board of Trustees have asked us several times over the last year, year and a half, when students would receive student e-mails,” Re said.

“I think it [Google mail] is a very good thing,” said Mamie Hou, dean of the Education Technology Office. “It will allow students to do collaborative work with students and instructors through Google Docs and  give people more tech tools.”

“It’s convenient for new students to connect with other students,” said fire science major, Allan Frias, 22, of the new e-mail system. “ But I probably won’t use the e-mail much because I have two already.”

San Francisco City College students can login and access their City College email accounts by browsing to http://google.com/a/mail.ccsf.edu.

By Graham Henderson

MANAGING EDITOR

It’s a tough time to be a car manufacturer. Not because the Big Three U.S. automakers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler­ — have seen their year-to-date sales drop almost 50 percent since last year, but because the time has come for automakers to invest in new technology.

The decision is not easy because it’s not yet clear what the technology of the future will be. Fuel cells, diesel, hybrid technology, electric vehicles and clean diesels are all fighting for the same market.

FUEL CELLS

Fuel cell vehicles use hydrogen as fuel to create electricity and emit only water. Fuel cells are about 80 percent efficient, meaning that of the fuel put in, 80 percent is made into electricity, according to HowStuffWorks.com. Internal combustion engines typically achieve 25 to 30 percent efficiency.

Fuel cell vehicles are often considered the holy grail of green motoring, but making them affordable is a challenge that no manufacturer has achieved.

All major automakers have proudly displayed fuel cell concept cars, some have even built working prototypes, but so far none are available for purchase.

The only fuel cell vehicle available to the public at all is the Honda FCX Clarity.  The company has already leased a number of them in Los Angeles with plans to eventually deliver about 200, but the $600 per month lease is heavily subsidized.

The Clarity has a 270 mile range per tank of hydrogen and returns the equivalent of 68 mpg, according to Honda’s Web site.

In addition to the high price, there are few gas stations that offer hydrogen. Customers are also deterred by images of the hydrogen-filled German zeppelin Hindenburg exploding while mooring in New Jersey, even though hydrogen is no more dangerous than propane or gasoline.

DIESEL

While diesels have been slow to catch on in the U.S. outside of the full-size truck market, in Europe they represent over 60 percent of new cars sold.

Small European-market diesel cars offer mileage that tops hybrids like the Prius. Ford’s Fiesta, a compact hatchback that’s smaller than a Ford Focus, offers 62.8 mpg, according to the European Union. Even better is the similarly-sized Volkswagen Polo Bluemotion, which is a regular Polo optimized for efficiency. With a 3 cylinder 1.2 liter engine it returns 71.3 mpg.

Diesels also produce less carbon dioxide than comparable gasoline engines. However, they emit more nitrous oxide and hydrocarbons.

Although diesel prices fluctuate, it is generally more expensive than gasoline. In Europe, diesel is taxed less than gasoline, making it cheaper by comparison.

Stricter U.S. emissions standards along with the American public’s lack of demand has deterred most car makers from producing diesels for the U.S.

That has begun to change as new technology, including particulate filters and urea injection, makes diesels cleaner. Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW all offer diesels. Urea injection reduces nitrous oxide emissions by up to 99 percent.

New diesels require low sulfur diesel fuel. Although it is widely available, a gallon of low sulfur diesel requires 25 percent more crude oil than a gallon of gasoline. Diesels can also be run on bio-diesel, which is renewable and less polluting but also produces less power.

Toyota Priuses for sale at Melody Toyota in San Bruno, Calif. on March 19. MIHAIL MATIKOV / THE GUARDSMAN

HYBRIDS

Hybrid vehicles, which use an electric motor in conjunction with a gasoline engine, are the most prevalent type of alternative car. When the car decelerates, the brakes convert the inertia of the car to electricity to recharge the battery. Some hybrids, like Toyota’s Prius, can operate at low speeds using only the electric motor, while others, like Honda’s Civic Hybrid, require the engine to be running at all times.

Hybrids have a huge advantage — they already work with the existing infrastructure. They can be refueled at any gas station and have the same distance range as conventional cars, which gives the driver the freedom and flexibility to travel whenever, wherever.

Hybrids are not perfect, however.  Top Gear, a leading U.K. automotive magazine published by the BBC, recently called the Prius, “a sham act if there ever was one.” The Prius, like most hybrids on sale, uses nickel-metal hydride batteries.

Mining of nickel can be environmentally destructive. Toyota buys nickel for Prius batteries from a mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The mine has created such a dead zone around it, that NASA now uses the area to test lunar rovers.

“The acid rain around Sudbury has destroyed all the plants and the soil slid off the hillside,” David Martin, a Canadian Greenpeace coordinator, told the British newspaper Mail.

Future hybrids, like Chevrolet’s highly promoted Volt, will feature plug-in technology. The car can be charged in six to seven hours at a regular electrical outlet, allowing it to drive without using the gasoline engine until the charge is depleted and the engine kicks in. The car then operates like a normal hybrid. The Volt goes on sale in 2010.

ETHANOL

Using ethanol as a fuel has been in the limelight recently. It has the advantage of being used in conventional internal combustion engines. Missouri, Minnesota, and Hawaii all require a small – up to 10 percent – amount of ethanol to be blended into all gasoline.

There are a number of cars available in almost every market sector from both GM and Ford that can run on E85, a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. However, E85 is not widely available in the U.S. As of 2008 there were about 1,700 gas stations in the country offering E85, but nearly all of them were in the Corn Belt, led by Minnesota and Illinois.

Even where E85 is available, it’s hardly an economic or environmental silver bullet. In the U.S. ethanol is made mostly from corn, which has created jobs and driven the price of corn to record highs. While creating jobs and reducing dependence on foreign oil are admirable, creating fuel from a crop that is used for food, either directly for human consumption or as cattle feed, is not sustainable on a global scale. The earth has a limited amount of fertile land and there’s not enough to provide for both fuel and food. Making the problem worse is the fact that much of the farming is done with diesel farm equipment that causes pollution.

The other drawback of ethanol is that it contains less energy than gasoline, which results in a decrease in mileage because more fuel needs to be burned to get the same amount of power.
Ethanol can aslo be made from sugar cane, petroleum, or waste products from other crops.

As a fuel, however, it’s difficult to fault. Many racecars use ethanol. Lotus, a maker of British sports cars, even produced an E85-powered version of its Exige sports car, calling it “the most powerful road version of the Lotus Exige ever.” The 265 hp supercharged car was built to show what was capable with ethanol but was never put into production.

ELECTRIC

Electric cars have the advantage of zero tailpipe emissions, but this is somewhat misleading. Electric cars still create emissions, the only difference is that the emissions come from a power plant instead of the car. Emissions from electric cars are impossible to define, because it depends on how the electricity used to charge the car is produced. In the U.S., 55 percent of electricity still comes from non-renewable — and polluting — coal-burning power plants. In California, which has a variety of power plants, electric vehicles would be significantly cleaner than their gasoline counterparts.

The biggest problem with electric vehicles is their lack of distance range, coupled with long charging time, this makes electric car ownership less appealing. Although many electric vehicles today resemble glorified golf carts, the trend is starting to change.

The electric Tesla Roadster, a two-seat sports car made by Tesla Motors, is based on a Lotus chassis, making it both high performing and environmentally friendly. With a charging time of about four hours using a special electrical outlet, the Roadster offers a range of 240 miles, according to Tesla, although hard driving can significantly lower the range.

Celebrities are cuing up. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Clooney, among others, have placed orders.

There are more practical options as well. MINI offered a lease program on an electric version of its popular MINI Cooper to customers living in New York, New Jersey, and California. The electric version sacrifices the back seats of the regular car to make space for the battery packs, but offers a range of 150 miles and a top speed of 95 mph. MINI plans for the car to go on sale between 2010 and 2015.