Airlines positioned for efficiency gains

Airlines positioned for efficiency gains

Planes are being built out of the same lightweight materials used for Formula 1 race cars. Their engines are being redesigned to squeeze more thrust out of every gallon of fuel. And governments are developing air-traffic systems that will allow airlines to fly shorter routes.

Those and other advances have positioned airlines for the biggest gains in fuel- efficiency since the dawn of the jet age in 1958. For airlines, more-efficient jets will reduce their biggest expense. For passengers, it means fares won’t jump around as much with the price of oil.

“We’re seeing 25 years of improvements compressed into 10 years,” says Hans Weber, president of TECOP International, an aviation- consulting firm.

Airlines’ urgency to reduce fuel use is being driven by two trends: soaring oil prices and tougher environmental regulations.

Warming pause tied to sulfur in China

WASHINGTON

Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth’s temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record.

The answer seems counterintuitive. It’s all that sulfur pollution in the air from China’s massive coal-burning, according to a new study.

Sulfur particles in the air deflect the sun’s rays and can temporarily cool things down a bit. That can happen even as coal-burning produces the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming.

“People normally just focus on the warming effect of CO2 [carbon dioxide], but during the Chinese economic expansion there was a huge increase in sulfur emissions,” which have a cooling effect, explained Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University. He’s the lead author of the study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

But sulfur’s cooling effect is only temporary, while the carbon dioxide from coal burning stays in Earth’s atmosphere a long time.

Greek default alert weighs on stocks

LONDON

European stocks struggled to extend last week’s gains Monday after Standard & Poor’s warned that a recent French proposal to get banks involved in helping Greece would trigger a default on the country’s debt.

Sentiment last week was buoyed by an easing in the Greek debt crisis after the country’s lawmakers backed austerity measures required from international creditors in return for more bailout cash. Relief that a Greek default has been avoided helped stock markets around the world post one of the best weeks in months — the Dow Jones index in the U.S. actually had its best week in two years.

However, S&P’s warning Monday that two proposals by an association of French banks “would likely amount to a default” weighed on the European opening despite earlier gains in Asia. U.S. markets were closed for Independence Day, meaning that volumes were limited.

Associated Press