Propane 🏮

Propane 🏮

A few days ago I posted about how my research found that it was the propane dealers association that was most vocally pushing back against the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Propane is widely sold as a cleaner and cheaper fuel to heating oil, especially in rural Western NY in areas lacking natural gas lines. Oil still remains dominant though in rural parts around the Hudson Valley. I don’t know if electricity is that much of a threat to propane, although it’s obvious that propane dealers see the writing on the wall, or at least are pretty fearful about heat pumps and greater electrification of rural residences. A farm or rual residence might be a good place for solar panels, and if you can make your own energy, why pay a propane dealer?

I have some experience working with propane having used it a fair bit for camping over the past six and half years with a twenty gallon tank and my big buddy heater, propane stove and lantern. Propane has its pros and cons for sure — it’s a relatively clean fuel but it can get very dirty from the oils on connectors taking them in and apart in the woods. But certainly propane is a much cleaner and more reliable fuel then the awful liquid gas stoves I used to use, especially when burning regular gasoline.

When I own my own land and have an off-grid cabin, I will probably use propane but I’m not sure if I would want to use it as a primary heating fuel, as it’s relatively expensive and makes you dependent on propane deliveries, which can be difficult if not impossible in remote country. Plus it sure seems l like some of the propane dealers engage in scammy business models. While bulk propane delivery is much cheaper, getting a 100 lb or even a 30 lb tank might be a better option, as you can take it to any propane filler to get filled and have multiple tanks around.

Most energy consumed by propane is by far for heating. While I might keep a propane wall heater or a big buddy heater for warming things up quickly in the cabin when things are cold, I think the best method of heating remains wood, harvested and processed yourself. Wood is a carbon neutral fuel if harvested from your own acreage, it’s not dependent on market prices. Propane though is good for cooking, although if you have a wood-stove going, you might as well make breakfast and other meals in a cast iron skillet right on the wood-stove, rather then consuming expensive gas.

In the summer, an outdoors cook-stove might be a good option, although in my experience in Boy Scouts, cooking on wood isn’t as easy as you might think to control heat levels, and it’s a lot of waiting for coals to build up. Maybe though in a regular outdoor cook-stove it’s easier to cook then an smokey, open fire. At least with a cook-stove you can ventilate the smoke up and above and not have it in your face, and to boot, papers and wrappers can be disposed of after cooking so you have less kitchen trash around. But I don’t know, there is definitely some advantages to cooking with gas, especially in rural areas without access to high-voltage electricity.

1 Comment

  • Jeffrey Barthelmes says:

    Used to natural gas all our lives, we got used to cooking with gas, so living in the country, we got propane for that. We get that tank topped off once a year. I mentioned elsewhere that maximum electrification is generally grossly inefficient for heating purposes, and that there is great evil in store for ordinary folks with more centralized energy distribution. My view is that the Chinese Communist Party is writing the globalist script these days, and that their puppets in US government and the billionaires know that there is only reward in collaborating with them and not resisting it. What they are not telling you is that more fossil fuel will be diverted away from consumption in the US and Europe to China and consumption will only increase despite the global warming fiction they sell. They are also doing everything they can to spread their bioweapons especially here among older folks, with bad policies and pseudovaccines that minimize symptoms while failing to block new covid versions as true vaccines would be expected to. Racial division and gender confusion are promoted to divide us. Big business and big money are doing their bidding by blanketing us with this propaganda and censoring dissenting opinion. If it seems like the US is disintegrating, it is no accident. See the bigger picture.

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