EuroWire March 2016

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Transatlantic cable
March 2016 50
human activity, Henry Fountain of the New York Times puts this
amount of CO2 at only a little less than that produced every year
by Germany.
And, Mr Fountain noted, growth in aircraft emissions shows no
signs of slowing. The International Civil Aviation Organisation,
the United Nations agency that oversees the industry, forecasts
that the worldwide commercial eet will double, to about
40,000 airliners, in the next 15 years.
A recent European Commission report holds that, even as
countries and other industries rein in their CO 2 emissions,
aviation could eventually be responsible for more than one- fth
of the global total.
Problems invite solutions, and this very big problem has led
to a visionary concept known as distributed propulsion. One
of several technologies being studied by NASA engineers at
Edwards Air Force Base, California, and other research centres,
it is believed to hold promise for completely new and far less
polluting aircraft designs. (“Rethinking the Airplane, for Climate’s
Sake,” 11 th January)
In a typical jet turbine engine, a central core burns fuel and air,
providing power to turn a fan. That fan draws in more air that
bypasses the core and exits out the back, producing more thrust.
Engines have become more e cient in part by incorporating
larger fans to move more of this “bypass” air; but there is a limit
on the size of the fans.
As described by Mr Fountain, the idea behind distributed
propulsion is to move the engines – complex, heavy devices –
from their usual position hanging below the wings and install
them elsewhere around the plane. A distributed design simply
adds more fans, so long as there is enough electricity – from
simple, small electric motors – to run them.
“Now you’re not constrained by the size of the engine,”
Panagiotis Laskaridis, who researches distributed propulsion at
Cran eld University in Britain, told the Times.
† The test craft at Edwards uses batteries to power its
motors. But Dr Laskaridis and a Cran eld colleague,
Devaiah Nalianda, are studying the feasibility of hybrid
turbine-electric systems that might use batteries and a
single jet engine to generate electricity for the motors.
According to Dr Nalianda the technology under
development at Edwards is entirely feasible. While
acknowledging that much development work lay ahead, he
has no doubt that it will eventually be used, perhaps even
for large aircraft.
“When the jet engine replaced the piston engine in the
1940s and 1950s, it was very disruptive,” he reminded Mr
Fountain. “I believe distributed propulsion is a similar kind of
disruptive technology.”
Steel
New grades of formable advanced high
strength steel for lighter-weight vehicles are
winning back some deserters to aluminium
Estelle Tran, who covers metals for Platts, observed that the
North American International Auto Show in Detroit, held
this year from 11th to 24th January, is as big an event for a car
enthusiast as an Apple product launch is for a techie. But
Ms Tran, who is neither, went on to note that the big annual
auto show is also a major event for a metals enthusiast.
Last year, it will be recalled, the big newsmaker at the show
was the aluminium-bodied Ford F-150, which prompted some
car makers to predict aluminium would be key to helping
lighter-weight vehicles meet corporate average fuel economy
(CAFE) standards, made tougher by the US Congress in 2007.
Further raising the bar for the automakers, President Barack
Obama in 2012 tasked them with boosting the average fuel
economy of new cars for sale in the USA to 54.5 miles per gallon
(mpg) by 2025.
“Fuel economy isn’t the only way to go green, though,” wrote
Ms Tran, a visitor to the 2016 edition of the auto show. (“Green
Targets Drive Demand for New Forms of Auto Steel,” 15th January)
Larry Kavanagh, president of the Steel Market Development
Institute (SMDI), warned Platts that any shift away from
automotive steel entails environmental consequences. He
noted that aluminium production gives o four to ve times
more greenhouse gas or CO2-equivalent emissions than steel
production, as well as requiring seven times the amount
of energy.
Citing a study by the University of California at Santa Barbara,
Mr Kavanagh said it found that primary production of steel and
advanced high strength steel emits 2.3-2.7 kilograms (kg) of CO2
equivalent per kg of material; aluminium production, 13.9-15.5
kg of CO2 equivalent.
The same study found that recycling (secondary production)
of steel and advanced high strength steel emits half the CO2
equivalent as recycling aluminium. And almost all automotive
steel is collected and recycled, accounting for more than 80
million tons of repurposed steel per year, according to the SMDI.
† Ms Tran gave two examples at the auto show of new grades
of formable advanced high strength steel incorporated into
vehicles, notably in the chassis:
The lower control arm of the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu from
General Motors is now made of steel, whereas the versions
in model years 2012 through 2015 were of aluminium. A
spokesman said GM opted to switch back to steel because it
meets company goals for reduction of mass, as well as for its
lower materials and processing costs.
The lower control arms of the 2016 Buick LaCrosse and
all-new Envision also use steel, which according to a Buick
spokeswoman a ords comparable, if not better, weight
reduction than aluminium.
“Steel is really a new technology,” Jody Hall, vice president of
the automotive market for SMDI, told Platts. “It’s not the old
technology that people think.”
Telecom
This year in telecommunications:
pitched battle in US wireless,
a return to revenue growth in Europe
The Bloomberg Terminal, a widely used tool for gathering market
information from around the world, on 11th January provided its