Who had DEF shortage on their bingo card?

[Blast]

No urea, no DEF. No DEF, no trucking. No trucking, much badness.
https://sensingonline.blogspot.com/2022/06/get-ready-for-catastrophic-def-shortage.html
<some politics at link>

From the article:
China, which is also among the major urea exporters, has put restrictions on exports. Urea prices have surged over the last year, which is leading to high fertilizer prices. To ensure the domestic supply of fertilizers at a time when there are real risks of a global fuel shortage, countries have been looking to curb exports and prioritize domestic consumption. 

-Blast

[Raptor]

Def is critical. And No I do not have that on my card.

Yes Blackrock is the biggest owner of Vanguard and Vanguard is the biggest owner of Blackrock.

[Lambykins]

No urea, no DEF. No DEF, no trucking. No trucking, much badness.
https://sensingonline.blogspot.com/2022/06/get-ready-for-catastrophic-def-shortage.html
<some politics at link>

From the article:
China, which is also among the major urea exporters, has put restrictions on exports. Urea prices have surged over the last year, which is leading to high fertilizer prices. To ensure the domestic supply of fertilizers at a time when there are real risks of a global fuel shortage, countries have been looking to curb exports and prioritize domestic consumption.

-Blast

This is one of the scariest things I have ever read.

[echo83]

Unless resolved, this demand may cause countless thousands of 18-wheelers to be force-parked very soon, perhaps starting this month. That would be a very, very terrible event, because according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the trucking industry transports almost three-quarter of all goods shipped in the country. 

Damn. I knew the percentage of goods shipped by trucks was high...but 75%? 

2020: We can't find enough people to drive the trucks.

2021: We can't find enough people to load/unload the trucks.

2022: We can't find trucks.

[Anianna]

My initial question was can the trucks just run without it (I get that that's not ideal).  The article answers that:

According to Discover DEF, "If the truck is allowed to run out of DEF, the engine's power is reduced, a solid red warning will be displayed and the vehicle speed will be limited to 5 mph until the DEF tank is refilled." If the DEF shortage gets worse, it could ground commercial fleets since they mainly run on diesel.

Now my question is, is there an override to this that will allow fleets to continue to operate if politicians put temporary holds on legislation that requires this system?

Additionally, a urea shortage will have serious impacts in a wide range of fields, including medicine.  Treatments for several skin conditions require it.  While surgical debridement remains an option, urea is used in nonsurgical nail debridement, which is preferable to surgery. 

Urea is used to make pet-friendly deicer. 

Iirc, urea is one of the components in the production of ethanol. 

The cosmetics industry makes heavy use of urea in just about everything you use in your bathroom.  Soaps (including dish soap), shampoo, conditioner, lotions, etc. 

Ooh, sunscreen very likely uses it.  Time to get UV blocking clothing.  You can get sleeves to wear with a t-shirt which gives you better airflow than wearing long sleeves.  Ditch swimsuits and get rash guards for swimming.  Take it from a very pale person who has pretty serious sun reactions - wear more, not less. 

Oh, it's in laundry detergent, too.  I recommend an aqueous ozone system on your washer to never buy laundry products again.  Also, you can get aqueous ozone spray bottles, just add water and charge the bottle and you have a sanitizing cleaner that you can use on both surfaces and food. 

Basically, even if they can get trucks operational without it, that doesn't mean we'll get the products we're used to using.  If you haven't already assessed your use of these products and found alternatives for them, I suggest getting on that.

Edit to add:  If you're checking labels, it can also be called carbamide.

[tirls]

DEF shortage is scary. Not only does it affect transport, but most agricultural machines are run on diesel. No combine harvesters, no tractors...

It can be circumvented by using old cars. It confused me at first, because our last car was a diesel and I had never seen any AdBlue/ DEF tank in it. Turns out, only the newer ones which are compliant with exhaust value regulations seem to have it. Ours was an old Vauxhall and certainly didn´t.

If you use urea for skin conditions you can get it in crystal form and add it to regular skin cremes as needed. Simply get some micro scales and add until you have the desired percentage. It´s also a lot cheaper.
Theoretically, we could reintroduce urine collection and precipitate urea out of it. It might not be economically feasible and I´m sure some western civilisation seemliness prevents it. But it was used historically for a lot of the things Anianna mentioned and more, including teeth bleaching ().
(I´m so desperately trying not to start a rant on historical urine collection and uses, but look up lant, and Tenochtitlan, and ... I´ll stop, but it´s INTERESTING!)

[Crosscut]

Starting to wonder how far we are from price controls and ration cards.

[majorhavoc]

Starting to wonder how far we are from price controls and ration cards.

I remember a time when a Pearl Harbor-level attack on American soil, a near-catastrophic recession, a global pandemic and a land war in Europe seemed completely implausable.  And a few other once-inconceivable events that I won't talk about because, you know, politics.   

So price controls and ration cards?  Absolutely nothing would surprise me at this point. 

[tirls]

Germany has already established a contingency plan for rationing gas. So far I haven´t heard anything on fuel.
When panic buying started there was a limit of how much you could take for some goods. I expect the latter to happen again when certain groceries become limited. You can already see it happening for flour and some oils. If we get extreme shortages of wheat products I wouldn´t rule out a complete rationing of it. 
I don´t expect something like ration cards for most food products, but the price increase is getting insane.