Freight trains criss-crossing the country carry cars of coal and tanks of oil and natural gas to power plants to help keep the nation’s electric grid going. Could freight trains haul electrons generated by renewable energy sources for the same purpose?
That was a question that Christopher Smith, who has an extensive background in the renewable energy industry, asked himself. He was hiking in Alaska, watching a train roll by when he had what he called an epiphany: freight trains in fact could play a vital role in getting renewable power from the remote places where it is often produced to where the electricity is needed.
About four years later, Smith and Jeff Anderson, a green-tech entrepreneur, are pursuing what they say will be a first-in-the-nation pilot project in Colorado. They want to show that trains can be used to get around transmission bottlenecks by hauling large batteries to sites, such as existing coal or natural gas…
