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.)

Former CIA director James Woolsey has signed on with many environmental movements, including the electric car. Just fast-forward to the end of "Who Killed the Electric Car" to see more. A few days ago he wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal and outlined the scenario of a 500 mpg car. Rich Smith, writing for Motley Fool, has deconstructed the assumptions in search of investing opportunities. Woolsey's scenario is based on a flex-fuel plug-in hybrid and the 500 mpg is based on a gallon of gasoline, not all the fuel that will be burned. Woolsey's plan is very optimistic and doesn't take into consideration how much fuel and energy is needed to make ethanol, which accounts for 400 of the 500 mpg goal. But Smith sees investment potential in battery makers and electric companies.

[Source: Rich Smith / Motley Fool]

Whenever anyone mentions James Woolsey in an article, they pretty much need to remind the reader that he was once head of the CIA. Well, it's true, but whenever he's been active recently, it's mostly to promote plug-in hybrids or some other green car technology. That's what he was doing in Santa Monica on Sunday, so we'll leave any scary spook stuff out of this report (but we will mention his participation in PNAC and his call, this past July, to bomb Syria, just so you know he's not your typical green car enthuisiast, although that might be obvious when you read what he had to say).

Woolsey said during a session called "Energy, Seciruty and the Long War of the 21st Century) that, because we're so dependent on oil and two-thirds of it is in the Persian Gulf, oil dependency is a security issue. While America's electric grid is vulnerable (remember how one tree in Ohio plunged many states into darkness a few years ago?), and terrorists are smarter than trees), at least the grid is here in the U.S. where we can control and modify is. That gives us - and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) - the advantage.

Continue reading after the jump.

In just over a month, the Oklahoma Governor's Conference on Biofuels kicks off in Norman, OK. Representatives of the USDA, the Air Force, ConocoPhilips, various local governments in Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, among others, will be speaking. The biggest name on the list, though, is James Woolsey, former director of the CIA and now a strong proponent of alternative fuels (maybe you saw him briefly in "Who Killed The Electric Car?"). Woolsey will speak on his new favorite topic, "the relationship between national security, dependence on foreign oil and the development of alternative transportation fuels". Promotional material for the conference says that farmers and ranchers "will be the cornerstone of the emerging biofuel industry" and this conference is designed to tell them when they'll be able to sell a "dedicated energy crop". Organizers say Oklahoma is poised to be a leader in switchgrass ethanol production.

[Source: Grow OK]

You don't have to spend much time talking with Chelsea Sexton to realize she is passionate about electric vehicles. Sexton has been part of the EV debate that started in the 1990s with the debut of General Motor's first mass-production all-electric vehicle, the EV1. Sexton worked for GM, leasing the EV1 to customers and working on marketing strategies, until late 2001, when she was laid off and GM stopped the EV1 program. The EV1's story is told in the new film "Who Killed The Electric Car?", which features Sexton and others talking about the strange fate of the cars that were once hyped by Hollywood stars, then found a fanatic consumer base, and are now out rusting in the desert. Sexton found time for an exclusive Q&A with AutoblogGreen.

ABG: Do you think "Who Killed The Electric Car?" accurately portrays the EV1 story?
Sexton: I do, actually. I've been really proud of Chris [Paine, director] and Dean [Devlin, executive producer]. That is part of what has enabled all of us to have a good level of trust going into it because it is their story, too. The director and the executive producer were both drivers of these cars [EV1s]. We knew they'd do right by the story. I've been really impressed with how well Chris told that complex story in a precise and compelling way.

ABG: How did you get involved in the film?
Sexton: (laughs) I leased them their cars. I've known Chris for about nine years and I actually leased Dean his car but also his father Don Devlin was one of my very first drivers, the guy to whom the film is dedicated. In some ways, Don is responsible for our ability to tell the story with such accuracy because he was, from the very beginning, saying the auto companies do not want to do this and he made us pay attention all along. It was very rewarding to get to tell the story for Don in the end.

ABG: There is a scene in the film where you go see an EV1 in an underground parking garage, I think in a car museum. Is this the last EV1 in existence?
Sexton: No. There are about 40 that GM gutted and donated to museums and universities, basically in an effort to get some brownie points in the end, I guess. The Peterson [Automotive Museum] got one of them. Another one that is kind of making a lot of waves right now is the one in the Smithsonian because they got the only intact car, but they just removed it from display. The Washington Post wrote a big article on it a few days ago. The other interesting component is the wing that the EV1 sits in was paid for by General Motors. GM donated $10 million to the museum and now, on the eve of the film coming out, they remove the car. There's no conspiracy theory involved, but it certainly is a big coincidence.