What high prices accomplish is ensuring that new supplies are created to make future prices as low as possible.
The high prices of Propane are intended to cause people to switch to the never ending supply of natural gas.
The temporary pain of ‘14 will be a lost memory to the sweet inexpensiveness of ‘15
(can you believe that it is actually ‘14)
Yes, as long as people are free to respond. Regulation, zoning, licensing, patents, and copyrights are all designed to interfere with the natural market.
Propane is a byproduct, not a product.
Propane is cracked into propylene used for polypropylene(plastic). Ethane into polyethylene(plastic). Butane into Butadiene(synthetic rubber).
Propane is produced by cracking naptha which comes from oil. Propane is also produced by separating it from natural gas.
BTW, if you are paying $95/year tank rental, you are getting screwed.
To save money, you can use your kitchen range to partially heat your house. That is direct fired and 100% efficient. But that makes your windows fog up and raises the CO2 in your air. And you have to be careful that no carbon monoxide is being produced because that will kill you. Make sure the flame is blue with only a small amount of yellow at the tip of the flame.
There is plenty of supply. It is just being exported. Next year is even being predicted to be worse.
The Midwest pipeline supply situation may be worse next winter, when Kinder Morgan plans to have reversed its Cochin pipeline to carry light condensate to Alberta, Canada, said Joe Rose, president of Propane Gas Association of New England, by phone yesterday. “That will be next year’s catastrophe,” Rose said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-01-22/midwest-propane-prices-push-record-as-pipelines-can-t-catch-up