Lawrence Vulis

China pours rocket fuel on the vehicle replacement cycle.

A 625B RMB ($90B) national trade-in subsidy launched for 2026, paying consumers directly on a first-come basis.

This isn’t just an #EV incentive — it accelerates ICE fleet retirement.

Old ICE out → EVs & PHEVs in.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a “water person” this is a must read story in my mind. Just jaw dropping.

This story has everything, a focus on desal that led to overlooking other water sources, a city manager making $400K/yr saying don’t panic, a former water system manager saying residents should absolutely panic, and magical thinking: “The last hope to avert disaster was a 20- to 30-inch rainfall.”

#climaterisk

The volume of crude production that Iraq has *already* shut-in is larger than the peak of *feared* [but never realized] Russian supply loss in early 2022 that spiked crude prices above $120 per barrel.

Hilariously one of the few places where it's truly better than driving in the US. Definitely a bit more expensive than the bus but such a great ride.

Electricity price for different hours of the next day in Poland. Price swings from 5 to 1000 zl/MWH.

Polish electricity market is seeing 100-200x swings in electricity prices in a day. Inspired by an @data.ft.com article on European markers. energy.instrat.pl/en/electrici...

This is Russia stuff but saw another article totalling 80+ hits there. bsky.app/profile/lvul...

The Black Death’s counterintuitive effect: as human numbers fell, so did plant diversity New study finds that plant biodiversity collapsed in landscapes where arable production was abandoned during and after the Black Death era.

European pre-industrial agriculture was actually good for plant diversity. This according to a study that showed diversity slumped with the Black Death as human population crashed and land was abandoned and rewilded itself.
theconversation.com/the-black-de...

#biodiversity #agriculture #rewilding

Kharg island is very lit up on FIRMS

I was in Orlando last week at a reinsurance conference. It was a red flag day and the forest looked like you could drop one match and it would go up. I had never seen with my own eyes and felt why FL had such wildfire risk. But it was obvious. Hair on the back of your neck stands up obvious.

The week started with just 8 states gas prices averaging over $3/gal, but it will likely finish on Sunday with 45 states over $3.

Funding Friday: Tom Steyer Makes a Real Estate Play On Galvanize’s latest fund strategy and more of the week’s big money moves.

lots going on this week! tom steyer's investment firm raises a fund to decarbonize real estate, a dutch startup nabs $ for a novel method of clean heat production, a former tesla exec rolls out electric motorbikes in east africa, and an offshore wind developer seeks to power submerged data centers

charts of EU countries' electricity prices

intraday electricity prices highly volatile in Europe, solar during day, expensive gas at night

underscores need for battery storage

also notice spain holding up better than others, a country with a high concentration of renewables
www.ft.com/content/ac77...

Looking like a really, really good time for Cap Metro to finally put 40 or so of its 104 electric buses into service on these new routes

Screenshot of Gurman Bhatia's course

In the Open Visualization Academy:

NEW COURSE: The Craft of Building Stories with Data, by @chartwaali.bsky.social: openvisualizationacademy.org/courses/the-...

Newsletter: Open Source Fuels the Future of Visualization (P.4 4) by Melissa Strong: openvisualizationacademy.beehiiv.com/p/how-open-s...

$100M for Minneapolis Blue Line light rail to Bottineau;
$100M for Columbia River Interstate Bridge replacement in OR/WA;
Two other new center-running bus transitways in Fairfax County VA, w/ connection to @wmata.com ($100M)
and in Charleston SC ($275M):
lowcountryrapidtransit.com/about/

Other FTA Capital Investment Grants announcements buried in last month's spending bill 🧵

$100M each for @bart.gov Silicon Valley Ph. II and @caltrain.com extension to Salesforce TC;
$307M for @mta.info 2nd Ave. Subway Ph. 2 to Harlem;
$700M for NY/NJ Hudson Tunnel

Funnily enough kind of a #climaterisk

Private credit funds (and a huge host of other vehicles, ranging from PE funds to hedge funds etc) sit in between. Investors are allowed to withdraw funds, but there are generally caps relative to the fund's size. For example, only 5% of fund assets can be withdrawn in aggregate, that kind of thing.

Oh man we are HAVING A NEWS DAY I see

*BLACKROCK’S $26 BILLION PRIVATE CREDIT FUND LIMITS WITHDRAWALS

9:09 AM | March 6, 26 | reuters.com UPDATE 1-BlackRock limits withdrawals at private credit fund as redemptions mount (Changes sourcing, Adds details throughout) March 6 (Reuters) - BlackRock said on Friday it has put limits on withdrawals from a flagship private credit fund after a surge in redemption requests, making it the latest company responding to rising investor caution in the asset class. Shares of the asset manager fell 3.4% before the bell after the Financial Times first reported the news. BlackRock's $26 billion HPS Corporate Lending Fund received withdrawal requests worth $1.2 billion in the first quarter, or roughly 9.3% of its net asset value. HPS Investment Partners told investors it would pay out $620 million as part of the quarterly redemption, hitting a 5% threshold that allows the asset manager to restrict further withdrawals

🫣

Feels like this with risk adaptation/mitigation as well.

Qatar warns war will force Gulf to stop energy exports within weeks Gas producer says it will take ‘weeks to months’ to restore deliveries after Iranian drone strike

Qatar warns war will force Gulf to stop energy exports within weeks ft.trib.al/JQxKy5e

Genuinely fascinating divergence.
Oil and energy market types: really beginning to freak out.
Global macro types: mostly relatively calm and expecting this to all blow over.

In addition to purchasing rooftop solar, there are several other ways that you can shift to renewable power from fossil fuels. Here are some of the methods that you can use. 🧪🔌💡☀️💨💧🔋 a 🧵 www.energy.gov/eere/solar/h...

SERVICE ADVISORY: The Joint Typhoon Warning Center will institute changes to its Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone warning frequency and product suite on 05MAR2026. Tropical cyclones within 500NM of Learmonth, Darwin, American Samoa, and Diego Garcia will continue to receive 6-hourly warnings, associated TC product suite, and include a prognostic reasoning message. [highlighted] Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclones outside those four geographical areas will have a 12-hourly warning frequency [/highlighted] and may have an abbreviated prognostic reasoning.

4 circles showing where 6hr JTWC forecasts will continue, outside of these get 12hr forecasts

Service advisory up on JTWC page says that outside of a few circles, southern hemisphere tropical cyclone forecast frequency to be cut in half starting today www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/jtwc.html

For those quickly trying to visualize 500nm, whipped up this *very rough* sketch

Citing lack of sewage capacity, Anne Arundel suspends development in part of county A Anne Arundel Public Works spokesperson said officials learned last month from Baltimore City that they could not purchase additional capacity in the sewage system, prompting the suspension that the ...

Strange situation out of Anne Arundel County: Officials say sewage capacity on a system flowing into a Baltimore treatment pant is at its limit, prompting a moratorium on development for an area in the middle of the I-95 corridor. Fix could take 5 years:
www.thebanner.com/economy/grow...

States with the biggest rise in #gasprices compared to a week ago
Louisiana ⬆️39.7c/gal
Georgia ⬆️37.5c/gal
Iowa ⬆️35.6c/gal
Indiana ⬆️35.2c/gal
West Virginia ⬆️35.0c/gal
Oklahoma ⬆️34.8c/gal
North Dakota ⬆️34.2c/gal
Ohio ⬆️34.1c/gal
South Dakota ⬆️32.6c/gal
Illinois ⬆️31.1c/gal

One of the most mind-bending things reading history is imagining the past's landscape

If you've been to Bangkok, you've looked over the wide Chao Phraya to Wat Arun

But the river wasn't always there. It was dug as a shortcut canal in 1542, with today's Bangkok Yai canal being its original course