Uh, sure. Cause there's never city/region wide power outages when the AC gets cranked up or electric heaters turn on with our over engineered/maintained grid....

 

No actually because we will still need lubricants for all the moving parts.

 

Knowing Walleye Hunter, I am sure he was attempting to convey sarcasm.

 

Yeah you’re right. My statement was more for the benefit of the Unicorns and Rainbows people.

 

Hopefully we can keep this thread going with facts and keep the politics out, but just as a point of interest does anyone know how much power it takes to run a Tesla Supercharger? It can take up to 150KW (150,000 watts) during the charge cycle. This is as much power as a whole neighborhood uses during the same time frame. It just makes me wonder where it will all come from with the borderline infrastructure we have now. What will California do to charge their cars during the fire season and it's rolling blackouts? Again, I don't want to see this discussion turn political and I am sure it is being watched closely, just putting out facts without bringing in political opinion and blame please as everyone knows that will end the discussion.

 

To me the solution to the electricity issue seems obvious: building a ton of molten-salt nuclear reactors that can burn uranium, plutonium, thorium, and nuclear waste stockpiles. Would require a space-race level of funding and commitment to accomplish, would need a congress and president willing to restructure the nuclear regulatory agency, and the cooperation of state, local governments, utilities, etc. Even though this would provide enough clean energy to fuel human civilization for an unfathomable amount of time, create a new industry's worth of jobs, and be able to desalinate sea water to fix the West's drought problems, the collective concerted effort required makes it all but impossible within our current society.

That being said, I'm just a lay person shouting in to the digital ether; there could be a myriad of real technical problems with this strategy that would render it ill suited to address the challenges humanity faces.

Really, the issue of the future of energy resources a complicated problem to be sure, and would require every level of government to be working together lockstep on implementation of an agreed upon, rock solid plan built upon science and a sincere desire to address the problems at hand. Our polarized political climate aside, that level of organization is very difficult to achieve. It's easy to take pot shots at others for what you think is naivety or misplaced focus, but in reality the various issues we all are concerned about are but various facets of a larger monster that we are ill-equipped to conceptualize on an individual basis, let alone deal with effectively. It's only within the last 1.5ish centuries that humanity, a species that evolved in small hunter gatherer social groups, has had access to the myriad of technologies that can radically reshape the world in a cosmological blink-of-an-eye, and it's all built upon a delicate geopolitical balance. Whatever understanding or mastery we think we have over any of it is comparable to an infant who has just learned to walk. Honestly, I'm amazed we have made it this long without a deadly fall, and I'd be surprised if the luck holds out.

One thing is for sure, a Dunning-Kruger esque hubris that holds any of these issues as being straight forward or easy to deal with will not improve our odds.

 

It's true the power grid would never support the whole country charging their electric vehicles at night. They are still toys for people who have money for a luxury vehicle and their own garage (or at least own driveway) to charge it in at night. I'm pretty sure they have no real solution to that one.

 

I still drive part time and hit places like D.C., Baltimore, Knoxville, North Jersey and the NYC metro area. In all of these areas, I see endless lines of cars and trucks for miles and miles. I cannot see how going all electric is even remotely possible. Not the production of batteries, not charging the batteries, not anything about it.

 

Word has it that the Salton Sea will become a major lithium mining operation https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-...ake-batteries/ I agree that some sort of Nuclear will be needed for millions of E-cars but a lot of infrastructure to deliver it will be needed. Meanwhile I have been paying close attention to diesel and a couple of year ago I joined the Diesel Technology Forum, they send e newsletters and it is amazing how developments in clean, efficient diesel power are advancing. A new OTR truck is something like 60 times cleaner than an old one, ships are being re-fitted with clean power plants, new types of injection is in the works. We are not hearing about it though and I guess diesel is still an environmentally dirty word. But I see no way we can ever hope to discontinue using it in the transportation of goods. I really believe some day diesel power will be so clean it will be cleaner than the electric vehicles when you factor in the lithium and the electric generation by coal and natural gas that produces the power most EVs use today. It may be there now, my TDI is very clean and very efficient, guys on the TDI forum claim the TDI is less impactful on the environment than the Prius. And a lot more fun to drive. Unfortunately the US won't get any more of them. But it might take a long time before diesel is not a dirty word anymore. Check out the Diesel Technology Forum https://dieseltechnologyforum.webex....6&locale=en_US

 

Anyway plenty of T4 at the local farm and home store.



No T6 however. They used to have it in both 5W and 15W grades, however they did have these still which are basically Mobil's equivalent tier products. Good price on the D1...$24.99.

 

I put SUNOPEC 15W40 in my truck before our big trip. I had about 5000 miles on it when I started to get that "change me" sound coming from the engine. I stopped at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the U.P. and the only 15W40 they had was that Delvac crap. I made it home with somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 miles on the oil change when I started hearing that "change me" sound again. Cold starts in the morning were getting worse, long crank time, rough idle, clacking for the first 15-20 seconds of running. Employee discount at the new job spurred me to try Schaeffer's. We have plenty of the gallon jugs on the shelf, plus a couple 55 gal drums in the warehouse. What an incredible difference! It took a few days of short runs to work for the oil to get into the HPOP system, but so much has changed for the better. Cold starts are even colder now and crank times are minimal, zero clacking at startup, and it idles smooth. I have only done about 500 miles towing heavy, but no complaints so far. I'm hoping for 10K on this oil. I also use the big blue Donaldson filters. Love that filter, it holds 3 quarts so I'm right at a full 4 gallons per change.

 

Schaeffer's is a premium product so the motor should run about as good as it possibly can on it, particularly if it's the 5W40 stuff which is their flagship product. The 15W40 semi-syn is also good however the injectors on a 7.3 or any HEUI engine respond well to a thinner oil at startup and will generally make it start and run a little better when cold. If it's a good discount and easy to acquire (it usually isn't) that's the stuff to use. Their greases are good too.

Careful with blue Donaldson filter. I used those probably 4-5 times and it started rubbing on the side of the oil pan so I quite using them and went back to a stock sized filter.

 

My Tractor Supply oil stash is still good, but I had to go to three stores to find Mobil1 0w-20 for the wife’s car.

 

amazon has 5 gallon buckets right now for 122. the issue in some areas is like of drivers to deliver stuff.

 

Is your wife’s car a Honda/Acura? They are the only ones I can think of that use that weird weight of oil.