Filed under: Manufacturing/Plants, Legislation and Policy, USA



When it comes to climate change, the auto industry will be better served by working with the energy industry on cleaner energy plants than dealing with more and more severe weather incidents in the future. That's the finding of a new study by Business Forward, which says that supporting the EPA's new rules - which is supposed to make energy plants 30 percent cleaner - is the right move. The reason lies in just-in-time production methods, which can be tremendously impacted by severe weather incidents.

The numbers look something like this. The EPA predicts electricity prices will rise 6.2 percent by 2020 with the EPA's clean power plan. Since the average car has $105 worth of electricity in it, that 6.2 percent rise will mean an extra $7 per car. Business Forward Foundation president Jim Doyle told reporters on a conference call last week that that means an hour of downtime is more expensive to these plants than a year of increased costs due to lowering carbon emissions. Business Forward's numbers show that an hour of downtime can cost over $1.25 million. It's tough to compare that to $7 more per car, but there you have it.

It's not just changes in America that can affect the auto industry. Business Forward says that:You can download a copy of the report, called "Severe Weather and Manufacturing in American: Comparing the Cost of Droughts, Storms and Extreme Temperatures with the Cost of New EPA Standards," here. If you don't want to read it all, we've got a press release and an infographic breakdown of the numbers below.Continue reading Doing nothing on climate change could cost auto industry millions

Doing nothing on climate change could cost auto industry millions originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Mon, 09 Jun 2014 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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