When I went tractor shopping, I settled on a 26 HP model because it was the right size for what I thought I'd be doing.
With the expansion of the family's empire, More Power was seeming like a good idea. Maybe I should have gone for something a couple of sizes larger?
Comes today's news: those couple-of-sizes-larger tractors are about to become inoperable. Owing to EPA regulations, they refuse to work without a supply of that (Arbitrarily Blue-Colored) Diesel Exhaust Fluid one sees for sale in various places. Supposed to reduce emissions of oxides of nitrogen.
And, well. (ABC)DEF is basically a urea solution, and all of a sudden urea is in short supply (along with other fertilizer-related chemicals). So the supply of the EPA-mandated emissions-control fluid is rapidly drying up, and when it's gone, the trucks and all recent tractors big enough to be used for serious agriculture won't work anymore.
(It's not all that sudden. Seems other countries were seeing shortages late last year, but nobody in a position of power thought to do anything about it.)
Y'know... maybe the small tractor wasn't a bad choice after all. Museum pieces likewise don't have the problem, but they don't have all the fancy features needed for modern agricultural methods, so farmers are basically hosed. As are truckers. Any anyone who depends on things like transportation and food.
Perhaps we'll see an outbreak of hacks to bypass the emissions-control lockouts, and the world will be saved by outlaw truckers and farmers...?
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