For Episode #22 of the AutoblogGreen podcast, Sam and Sebastian recap the AVFI show in Las Vegas, and enter into a discussion focusing on diesel. Still on the diesel tip, Sam talks excitedly about the Volkswagen TDI Cup racing series before moving on to the much more charged topic of EV infrastructure. Our interview this week isn't so much a one on one as it is a speech from T. Boone Pickens, he of oil magnate status, about how oil is not going to last forever. Thanks for listening, see you again soon!

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OK, so we heard from more than just cute kids, but watch the end of this video and you'll see why it's the kids that are highlighted in the headline. As the AFVI show was winding down and the expo floor was opened to the public, I found people without badges and asked them what they thought about the cars on display. I think these people give a great snapshot of who is out there looking for and buying green cars and trucks right now. As you'll see, they weren't as impressed as they might have been, but they'll work with what's available today.

And did I mention the cute kids?

Even though AutoblogGreen brought you lots of coverage from the Alternative Fuels and Vehicles expo and conference in Anaheim last week, with only one reporter on the ground there was no way to bring you everything. Thanks to the A/V people the conference hired, and the openness that some of the presenters feel, a lot of the session presentations are now available for you to read and watch online.

In most cases, what's being made available is just the PowerPoint files of the presentations. Two sessions, the ones on "Greening Up School Buses" and the "OEM Product Preview", also present a video, although more might be added later. It's just like being there, without feeling like you're in a hotel all the time.

[Source: AFVI]

That there is Larry Hagman. Mr. J.R. Ewing himself. He's a big green car advocate now, and he wandered the AFVI expo hall Monday afternoon looking over the cars and signing autographs for folks. Some of the cars he checked out were from ZENN and Zap! Other cars on the floor are the new police-duty E85 Interceptor, the Chevy Sequel, Zap!'s new all-electric ATV, the T3 scooter and more. Check out these galleries if you can't make it to Anaheim for the public day on Wednesday.

The AFVI Show certainly is a corporate conference. The opening session Monday morning was full of sponsor thanking, a promo video from GM, award presentations (from Santa Ana's mayor to Southern California Gas, the Green Award 2007 from AFVI to GM for their "Live Green, Go Yellow" campaign), and simple, industrial-strength platitudes on the excitement and potential the conference represents.

So, I'll skip telling you about these speeches in detail and just list a few of the more interesting bits from this morning's official opening. We'll get into the meaty topics later, during the breakout sessions.

Will Kleindienst, the conference chairman, started off by saying that the real crux of the current alternative fuels challenges is no longer finding information, but sifting through an overwhelming amount of information.

Annalloyd Thompson, AFVI's executive director, said the conference attendees have their own "axis of evil": dwindling oil supplies, growing climate instability and an economic engine that "sputters without growth" to contend with. Hear this clip here (MP3). The mayors of Anaheim and Santa Ana also greeted conference attendees. Santa Ana mayor Miguel Pulido spoke highly of his EnergyCS plug-in Prius. GM's John Gaydash, director of marketing for General Motors Fleet & Commercial Operations, said that America was not built on reducing anything, but on increasing things (like ethanol use). You can listen to this clip here (MP3).

Speaking next, Neel Kashkari, senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Treasury, explained how energy and the economy are intertwined in the minds are people at the Treasury Department. I've included most of his presentation because I think a lot of our readers will dig it. Kashkari brought a lot of PowerPoint slides with him, and you can click through the gallery below in one tab/window and watch while you listen his talk here (MP3). The short version of his talk: we just might be in trouble.



Pete McCloskey was the best of the bunch. He served in the U.S. military and as a Republican in the U.S. Congress and gave the most animated talk of the morning. He gave warnings about our energy future, and told stories about how he helped get Earth Day started and the power of the environment in politics in the '70s and today. You can listen to a portion of his talk here (MP3). Key quote: "I like Honda's attitude more than GM's at the moment." And how ballsy is he to end his talk with a note about the following speaker, ex-CIA head James Woolsley, with a line about CIA assassinations?

Woolsey, now vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, started with the same joke he did in Santa Monica at the Alt Car Expo (about being the "best-behaved prisoner" on a flight a few years back) and talked about a lot of the same things he said then – about Al Qaeda attacking Saudi oil productions facilities. I'll let you refresh your memory on his talk here.

Kleindienst then sat down with T. Boone Pickens (on two green upholstered chairs on the stage), who started by talking about Dick Cheney's hunting prowess (Pickens, seriously, says he's a good shot and has been hunting with Cheney in the past). Pickens, like so many others, said the upcoming energy crisis (AKA peak oil) is on his mind and, as someone long associated with BP, he is very aware that 75 percent of all the oil used in the world is used for transportation.

Pickens is a Rudi Giuliani supporter and said he recently told Giuliani that energy will be the key concern for whoever is the next president. Pickens suggested to Giuliani to never tell people, "we're going to be energy independent" because there's no good answer yet to the follow-up question of "How?" But Giuliani made exactly that statement recently, so Pickens said he felt he didn't get anywhere with the candidate. Still, "He's [Giuliani is] our best chance to beat Hillary," Pickens said. "But whoever our [Republican] nominee is, I'll be there."

Responding to a question from Kleindeinst on what he would do if, say, he ever became Energy Secretary, Pickens said he'd raise gas prices through higher taxes (to $4 or $5 a gallon) and use that money to pay for alternative energy research. He said he specifically doesn't like Hillary Clinton's idea of taxing the oil companies.

And with that, the 2007 AFVI show officially kicked off.

(Note: Back in December at the Alt Car Expo, we were able to bring you recordings of certain discussions in their entirety. The reason a complete recording of the opening session is not available is because AFVI has asked AutoblogGreen not to make full sessions from this conference available. It does cost money to attend, after all. Selected clips are OK, and that's what we'll bring you over the next few days. Enjoy.)

There wasn't too much new in the Monday-morning AFVI session California Dreamin': Forecast for Alternative Fuels, but a few viewpoints from the discussion are worth mentioning here.

Warren Mitchell, of Clean Energy, said it will be very difficult for petroleum products to meet emissions requirements in the future and that $80+ a barrel oil cost will push alternative fuel growth. Clean Energy hopes that a lot of the growth comes from natural gas produced in the U.S. used to power natural gas vehicles, like the Honda Civic GX (named ACEEE's Green Car for 2007). Mitchell said that switching to natural gas can result in annual fuel savings of between $4,400 for a taxi to $14,300 for a municipal bus. Sure, converting the engine costs money up front, but the cost will generally be paid back quickly (in a year or so) for many operators.

Paul Wuebben, clean fuels officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, echoed the developing mantra of these presentations that there is no one alternative fuel technology that everyone should be pursuing. His "interesting trends to watch" include a possible Toyota PHEV with flex-fuel technology, the "GM E-Volt platform" (sic), A123's lithium batteries and more.

Other panels provided a little more somethin' somethin', and that takes longer to write about (and process audio, etc.), so look for them in a little while.

Airports are a unique environment, especially from an alternative fuel and air quality perspective. While the largest polluters at an airport are the aircraft and individuals driving to the airport, two factors that airport management cannot really control (aircraft are subject to international regulations; more on individual cars later), there has been a lot of movement towards using cleaner alternative fuels at airports across the country.

During one of the early sessions at the Alternative Fuels & Vehicles National Conference and Expo, which started yesterday, Flying High: Airports Take Off with Alternative Fuels, speakers representing airports (and related organizations) from across the country spoke on the surprising variety of methods that are in effect right now and more that are coming soon. We're talking propane, consolidating hotel shuttles, using more biodiesel and rebuilding entire sections of the airport for better traffic flow.

Read AutoblogGreen's exclusive report after the jump.

Ride and Drives with alternative fuel cars can be a strange thing. Take the case of BMW's Hydrogen 7 in Anaheim yesterday. It's a smooth drive, no doubt. But the whole point of having one of these at the AFVI Conference is that it can run on hydrogen, right? What you might not know is that the nearest hydrogen station to the Anaheim Convention Center, according to the BMW rep who rode shotgun while I took one of these for a spin yesterday, is 90 miles away. Thankfully, the Hydrogen 7 is also a Gasoline 7 (thanks to a dual-fuel system), and so the BMW team drove two 7s down to the AFVI show on regular old gas and then let the Ride & Drive participants cruise the streets on H2.

It's easy to change the fuel source at any time by pushing a button. You'll notice in the two photos of the driver display in the Hydrogen 7 gallery below a little window that either reads H2 (when you're running on the liquid hydrogen) or the time and date (when you're burning dinosaurs). You'll also notice that the hydrogen tank was pretty close to empty when I was behind the wheel yesterday. I wonder what'll happen between now and Tuesday, when the second AFVI Ride & Drive is scheduled.

For now, enjoy these photos of three of the cars that were available today. I'll have my comments on riding in the Phoenix SUT later.

We've mentioned all of these green car rental companies before, but this is the perfect time to recap, what with the Anaheim Alternative Fuels and Vehicles National Conference and Expo starting Sunday. If any of our readers will be traveling to the LA-area for the event (or any time), consider this a heads-up that you can drive an alternative-fuel car during your stay.

The AFVI conference support crew sent out an email listing three green rental companies: Bio-Beetle, Fox Rent-A-Car and EV Rental Car. If you're signed up for the conference, you can get a discount at the latter two. I've put the contact info for these companies after the jump.

Also, check out my story on the Maui Bio-Beetle experience.

[Source: AFVI]