What mattered this week

Ferry impressive… World’s largest electric ship enters service

Big? 4x larger than any previous maritime battery.
Stats, please. 130 meters long. 2,100 passengers. 225 vehicles. 250t of batteries driving eight Wärtsilä water jets.
And this means? The battery revolution is everywhere. Short-range shipping is likely to be electric.
Best commentary: The Engineer

We’re treating our dirt like dirt

Problems? New report from Save Soil is frightening. 40% of UK soil, 60% of EU soil is degraded, due to intensive agriculture.
How bad? Fewer nutrients: food yields suffer. Compacted, eroded land: Flash floods. Reduced organic matter: Stores less carbon.
What can we do? Regenerative agriculture. Better - and costs more, natch.
Best commentary: Guardian

Best of the rest

🔥 US want to help Russia restart gas sales to Europe. Said it’d happen. (Reuters)
🥵 Second hottest April on record (Independent)
🚗 EU softens electric car targets, after huge industry pressure (Electrive)
🤪 Import hydrogen from Saudi to run buses in Surrey? Bonkers. (Independent)
❤️ Cars: UK market down 10%, but EV sales up 8% (SMMT)

One thing to worry about

New report says wealthiest 10% at fault for two thirds of global warming (Nature). Who’s that? Anyone earning over $38k.

Expect to hear a lot more from NGOs about ‘a Just Transition’. Translation: You’ll be asked to cash up.

One thing to be optimistic about

Chinese maglev train reached 620mph this week - faster than jet travel, with lot less carbon (engineerine.com).

Interestingly, Germans say this was their technology, and stolen by China…

If you’ve got more time…

Want a big new investment class? Learn this word: Adaptation. As efforts to mitigate climate change fail, the world will need to adapt to a new climate.

Means a lot of new infrastructure will be needed. Plus old stuff rebuilt to deal with heat, water, weather changes.

WRI this week published this thoughtful piece on how this will be funded, and asked if private finance might play a role.

The answer? Yes, probably. Opportunity?