Green Options

Storage is needed to harvest the full yield available from intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar. One of the options is compressed-air storage; till now only possible in underground caverns. But SustainX Energy Solutions; a Dartmouth College start-up  that got $4 million in VC funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Rockport Capital this year is working on compressing and storing air in cheap off-the-shelf shipping containers.

Over the next two years SustainX  will try to develop a way to cram 4 megawatt-hours worth of stored energy into each 40-foot long container and to reduce the energy that it currently takes to compress and release air by about 70%.

The goal? A renewable energy storage system with the portability and scalability of a battery and the economy and capacity of a cave. Make that a portable cave.

Norwegian company Th!nk is hoping to kick start the market for electric cars with its upcoming five-seater, the Ox.

Although an Ox is not what I’d call a particularly stylish or intelligent animal, don’t let the name confuse you — the Th!nk Ox could be about the most attractive and functional electric car ever designed. Before the debate starts over that claim, note the all-important “and” between the words attractive and functional.

Due out in 2010/2011, the Ox is about the size of a Toyota Prius. It can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 8.5 seconds, travel between 125 and 155 miles on a single charge, and its lithium-ion batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in less than an hour.