Just when downtown Denver traffic - foot traffic and cars - locked up this afternoon, a tiny all electric vehicle pulled up. The ride was free, quiet, and fast. The driver hit 40 miles per hour on Wazee just as a lane opened up.

Cyclists probably have the best shot at reaching Invesco Field Thursday evening, but officials want everyone to be ready for crowded streets and night riding.

At a high-brow DNCC confab on energy and climate change, some of the world's most prominent energy executives went head-to-head with global warming experts.  When someone described clean coal as an oxymoron, Frederick Palmer, vice president for government relations at Peabody Energy, fired right back with a saying that might be here to stay: "Clean coal is not an oxymoron. Black is the new green."

Lindsay Smith, director of sustainability at the Colorado Convention Center, has been busy since January turning the facility into a model of sustainability, in part for the DNCC, and for the future of Denver. Here's a look at what she's accomplished.
1. Let there be light: Instead of leaving lights at full power all day, they're automatically lowered to 50 percent of capacity until one hour before an event starts.

Tucked away in the bowels of the Colorado Convention Center is the office of Lindsay Smith, 30. She is the first sustainability director the convention center has ever employed and the first her own employer, SMG, has ever hired. SMG is the largest property management company in the world. Smith started her job in January. And it's been a marathon effort to turn the convention center, the size of 12 football fields,  the hue everyone is seeking these days at the DNC: green.

9:32 a.m. Former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth is here, sitting quietly in the back, so is environmental heavy hitter Francis Beinecke, president of Natural Resources Defense Council. Later there are rumors that climate rock star Al Gore will show. In fact, two weeks ago, he was on the agenda. But then disappeared. Negotiations broke down, organizers said. Oh well.

8:00 Rocky Mountain Roundtables on Energy. Mayor John Hickenlooper stands next to an elegant buffet filled with tiny sausages and micro quiches. The day here at the DCPA is all about climate change and energy. "I know enough about climate change that it scares me," Hickenlooper tells the small group of energy experts, including Dan Reicher Energy and Climate Director for google.

4 p.m. Recycling stations were still going up Monday afternoon at the Pepsi Center as volunteers, standing by, patiently explain to DNC attendees that yes, you really can compost a DiGiorno pizza box.

Les McPhearson is handing out bikes as fast as he can find riders this morning. McPhearson, stationed across from the Colorado Convention Center, is tracking electronically the number of bikes handed out, as well as the miles ridden and the effect on CO2 emissions.
As of 9:45 a.m. 453 bikes hand been handed over to riders across downtown and 542 miles already logged.