A new study looked at world populations living within thirty feet of sea level:

“The 10 countries with the most people in the low coastal areas are China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, United States, Thailand, and the Philippines.”

Most are in cities. The danger comes from storm surge, tides and other weather along with the rise.
Click the picture for a larger version.

Researchers at the University of St. Louis have developed a tiny fuel cell that runs on sugary liquids and could repace batteries in mobile devices. They conceptualize that the cell could be reloaded with capsules containing sugar solutions but have demo-ed versions running on soft drinks!
If you could charge your phone or laptop with sugary liquids there would be nowhere in the world you couldn’t have power- although I guess pouring liquid into an electronic device has its downsides…

CleanTech investing has an entry on a company that has technology to store wind power as compressed air stored in underground tanks. Cutely named General Compression (warning: web site home page auto-starts Flash with audio, a huge web marketing no-no) has their attempt to solve the big battery problem: storing energy from sources that are not consistent like wind.
The big problem with technologies like wind and solar has been developing storage so output is steady during lulls or darkness. Fossil fuels have held their grip because they are very stable storage media for energy. General Compression aims to store wind energy as compressed air underground then use it to turn turbines when needed. The only problem I have with this is: If we’re going to dig big holes, why not tap into geo-thermal, an unlimited and constant source?

I’m going to be doing a little more blogging about business here because climate change, like any change, has created an entirely new set of opportunities for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is a major interest of mine. While I’m currently employed, there is another start-up in my future (once you’ve gone down that road you almost have to do it again, if for nothing else than to leverage all the experience any start-up creates) and I really look forward to seeing how this generation addresses issues like energy, storage, green housing, etc.
Paul Graham, a successful entrepreneur, started Y-Combinator to offer very early seed money to (mainly) younger entrepreneurs. If you have a business idea this transcript of a recent speech is required reading. And if it the deadline hasn’t already passed, you have until April 2 to apply for some money and support.

Absolutely great stuff- read it.