There simply isn’t going to be DEF fluid sufficient to keep the engines running and moving. [More]
Anybody have qualifications and knowledge about this to weigh in?
What I’ve been able to find is it is hitting RVers and truckers hard.
And not just in the U.S.
Is it really that paranoid to suspect manipulation via an agenda that is not benign?
[Via JK]
It’s from an agenda that’s not benign, but here it’s “nothing personal” except for the strain of that intended to completely deindustrialize humanity which has the consequence of killing off most of it. But those extremists have only so much power.
DEF fluid is simply urea in water solution. Credibly per Wikipedia 90% of urea production is used as nitrogen fertilizer, it mentioned it “has the highest nitrogen content of all solid nitrogenous fertilizers in common use. Therefore, it has a low transportation cost per unit of nitrogen nutrient.” It does look dense, and I could double check that if you want, I was once on the chemistry track.
The catastrophic problem here is that due to bad policies this winter in the PRC (Xi is neither smart, nor well educated thanks to the Cultural Revolution, and his new clique promotes by loyalty, not competence), plus the fraud of
global cooling,excuse meglobal warming,excuse “climate change” which is conveniently unfalsifiable unlike those previous falsified frauds, natural gas availability was very bad in the US and Europe before the special military operation in the Ukraine.This is critical since the first step in making nitrogen fertilizer is making ammonia (NH3 which is also used as fertilizer) with the Haber-Bosch process. Which fixes nitrogen from the air, and uses hydrogens from natural gas AKA methane CH4. Thus the shortages and high prices of nitrogen fertilizers are particularly acute, and this is hardly the worst thing unless anyone just lets it stop truck transport; to quote Kurt Schlichter “Leftists Are About to Kill Millions of People Right Before Our Eyes.” They don’t care about their own country’s babies getting fed, you think they really care about Third Worlders?
Europe was particularly bad due to their insistence on buying on the spot market and Putin this winter refusing to sell very much if any on it, vs. on long term contracts Russia can use to finance continued production. So bad the U.K. had to pay one Haber-Bosch process plant to reopen, look at the above molecules and you’ll see carbon is extra, carbon dioxide (hiss!!!) CO2 is an industrial quantity byproduct and is used for all sorts of things including food processing.
I think it’s true. Here’s the CEO of Flying J testifying about it (Via Asian Mai trucking show) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjsUkFUU2BA\
What he said was that Union Pacific RR ordered Flying J to cut its railcar shipments of DEF by 30% this year. Since Flying J is the single largest US producer of DEF, that’s a problem. By the way, Union Pacific also ordered Flying J to cut 25% of its DIESEL railcar shipments, too.
And a couple of weeks back, UP ordered CF Industries to cut its railcar-shipments of potash-fertilizer by 25%.
Since CF is the only US producer of potash-based fertilizer, this, too, is a problem. But only if you like to eat stuff.
I’ve read unreliability that UP is cutting capacity first from companies that own their own rail cars, which you’d expect of CF Industries as they’re one of the world’s biggest ammonia producers as well as derivatives of it.
I’ve read that with the exception of BSND the big US train companies have moved to something they call “precision scheduled railroading” (PSR) which is anything but that, involves assembling very long trains and rolling them when they get long enough. Is said to hell on train crews because they’re on call and get 3-4 hours notice for when to start. Our infrastructure was not designed to handle trains this long (although I think we might have already passed that point to a degree) and shippers aren’t happy with the results. This has gotten enough attention for Congressional hearings.
One should note in general our ruling trash just doesn’t care about things like this, or how our Western coast ports have gotten so backed up. “Biden” has more important things to worry about including gun-grabbing.
“One should note in general our ruling trash just doesn’t care about things like this, or how our Western coast ports have gotten so backed up.”
SecTrans “Mayor Pete” is either out on maternity leave or hunting baby formula so can’t be bothered to be mindful of his day job. Rumor is that he didn’t clearly designate anyone to fill in so the Department of Transportation is effectively on autopilot.