propane costs

[jerrym4]

I was just reading the post regarding burying a propane tank. One of the posters mentioned the cost of propane.

I paid 79cents last year and 95 cents this year. I live in Wyoming and am several miles from the city limits of a small town.

What do you guys pay and how far does the delivery truck have to drive?

[DUMBDOG]

Where I heat with propane is about five miles out of town, last year during the summer I filled at 70 cents, called the other day and they want 1.02.

[mac]

I have a commercial account at 84 cents a gallon, that's because I use over 3000 gals a year in my greenhouse and home. The average in my area is 1.29 a gallon. I have heard of home owners paying over 2.09 a gallon in this area. Don't complain, at over 90,000 btu a gallon, anything under 1.00 a gallon is a real bargain. Mac

[WVBill]

I guess I need to move to where you guys are. I just got an offer from my Propane company to lock in for the coming year at $1.579 [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[fivestring]

Imagine, if they could ever harness methane.....
Very plentiful.
Don't think I'd want my gas grill to operate on it, tho....

[Pat]

Gary, Methane, the other natural gas, has been harnessed for cooking and baking for decades in regions where other fuels are not as readily available or desireable. A high school science teacher in Oceanside CA used to run an old jalopy on methane as his comuter car to and from school. It was powered by decomposing chicken manure in a plastic lined trunk.

In India and other areas of the world, folks use low tech methane generators to produce enough gas to cook, bake and run a mantle lantern, They make a pile of manure, cover it with a membrane, and bury the edges of the membrane with dirt. As the manure decomposes it generates methane gas which tends to inflate the membrane. A flexible tube taps the membrane (near the center in the units I saw) and takes the gas to the appliance. The only storage is at low pressure in under the membrane and the system is required to run most of the time, except for recharging it with manure. No provisions are made for high compression storage or other high tech approaches (that I knew of) but the generator can be scalled up quite a bit and serve a group. In the BIG ones a circular wall is often constructed and the membrane is attached to the top of the wall. Even with a fairly low wall the volume stored is greatly increased.

Never saw or heard of anyone powering a grill but bread baked in a methane powered oven is not tainted in any way. I don't think even the most sensitive palet could detect that a burger was cooked over a methane powered grill if the fuel air ratio was even close to correct.

When burned at atmospheric pressure methane produces mostly carbon dioxide, water vapor, and heat (quite similar to propane.) In an internal combustion engine, methane, when burned will provide the required conditions to produce some carbon monoxide and NOX.

Pat

[fivestring]

I knew groups had done quite a bit of research in the past, but you don't hear about methane much anymore. All you hear are fuel cells, electricity and such. I would imagine that methane would be fairly plentiful.

[Pat]

Fivestring, When I was Energy Conservation Officer of SUBASE San Diego I was aware of projects that drilled "wells" in the Miramar land fill (Great view of Miramar Naval Air Station, then home of Top Gun) to access methane gas from decomposing trash. If I recall correctly the gas was used to help fire boilers. They also used to burn dirty (contaminated) diesel fuel and such until the strict (crazy?) rules made it no longer feasible. When plane old diesel fuel with some gasoline or water in it became "hazardous waste" and reguired a specially liscensed contractor and truck to haul it from SUBASE to Miramar to be burned, the economic incentive to "save energy" was destroyed.

You can haul tons of diesel or gasoline separately but they consider the mix to be hazardous waste, subject to heap plenty regulation, Kemo Sabe.

A great use for methane from landfills is to fuel a co-gen installation (co-generation: burn fuel to run a turbine or ??? to gen electricity and capture the waste heat out the exhaust to boil water to make steam to power more gens or...)

Maybe someone will develop a cheap (economically viable) means of separating methane into its constituent parts (hydrogen and carbon), power fuel cells with the hydrogen and either consider the carbon a byproduct or oxidize it producing carbon dioxide and heat, using the heat for thermo electric generation or...

Gotta go now... The voices in the electrical outlets are making an important announcement.

Pat

[11b2cc3]

[img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] Just had the 100 gallon (nominal size) tank filled, 79.8 gallons. $2.52 / gallon: Outrageous!!! PLus another 3 bucks for hazardous material charge. I'm in Northern Virginia.

[Stoneheartfarm]

Always goes way up in January. When we were at the cabin, we payed over $2.00 to fill our small tank in January. Here, we're contracted for something like $1.39 maximum price. Next year it could be higher or lower. Last fill we got was in December and was something like $1.20. With a 500 gallon tank we won't need any more until spring, and the heat at the cabin is off, so we won't need any there, either.

Steve