Propane Costs Skyrocket and Local Gas Co. Has Hard Time Finding Supplies

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Just got a fill-up on our propane tanks at home. Cost is now up to $1.55 in our locality (Rockbridge Co., VA), and the guy who delivered says it's likely to go up even higher next week.

The reason? They can't find enough supply to serve their customers. Our propane man stated that the snow had been a blessing, providing an excuse to delay delivery to some customers when no gas was available.

He mentioned that a pipeline had broken at one of the refineries that supply to them, which might account for the shortage, but I also received the impression that supplies were short period.

Got wood?

-- CD (cdokeefe@firstva.com), February 01, 2000

Well, here we are 10 months later, and the elderly man I care for just got his propane bill. He and his cat live in a small 2 bedrm mobile home, and his propane bill for one month was $274.00. His electric bill was $125.00. His medical bills per month do not amount to that! "Al & Joe, what do you propose?"

On top of all of that, the California ISO has sent out "rolling black out alerts." Houston, we have a problem!

-- Mrs. Cleaver (Mrs. Cleaver@LITBBBB.vcom), December 09, 2000

Answers

It is all a conspiricy, and the big boys couldn't cover up the inevetable Y2K associated problems for any longer than 7 months when gasoline prices began to rise. The peoples confidance level has been reassured only to be asking themselves why are we not prepared?

-- Red Johnson (aliveon95@member.net), December 09, 2000.

Semper Paratus

-- (alw@ys.ready), December 09, 2000.

You mean I may actually find some use for these propane tanks afterall?

-- cin (cin@cin.cin), December 09, 2000.

Propane tanks will only provide the amount of gas to blow yourself up, the answer is to boycott the industry and the bet is that the people will not do this during the cold family time of year, therefore they win

-- Red Johnson (aliveon95@member.net), December 10, 2000.

Y2K issues have probably been covered by the power industries. you can manually override forever, but if this were happening word of it would have gotten out. The truth is that prices were low a couple of years ago and new exploration for more was cut way back. Also, a lot of less-productive wells were capped off. The GREENS have hampered building new electric power plants.

Meanwhile demand for more has continued. And price follows demand.

-- Johnn Littmann (littmannj@aol.com), December 10, 2000.

We knew back in January that there was a shortage of new propane being pumped from the wells. Why didn't the news media track this? Apparently the problem has been continuing all year. I wonder what the REAL problem is?

-- Wonderin (about@lots.of.things), December 10, 2000.

I'd venture that a considerable part of the "real problem" (one which never seems to get addressed in these discussions) is inconsiderate people (myself included) who don't think about where the energy comes from; just that it's "always there".

We have to cut back consumption. If we don't, what we're seeing now (high prices, high demand, lower supply) is the end result. (Yes, there are other factors; but this is the one I'm presenting right now. Deal with it [g].)

Both our power bill and our gas bill come with "usage charts" that show usage relative to last year. Doesn't everyone's have this feature? You can see how much more/less you've used, and can thus make a fairly good deduction as to where your money is going. Yes, costs have risen, but hasn't consumption risen as well (quite possibly, disproportionately)?

Mrs. Cleaver, why do you ask, "Al & Joe, what do you propose?"? What does that have to do with anything? Why turn this into a political thread? Aren't there more than enough of those? Where does that gentleman live (e.g., a winter clime)? What was his usage? Is he more infirm than the same time last year, which may cause a higher demand for power? Did you take any of this into consideration? Of course costs have risen, but let's look at the whole picture, not just the part that "proves" whatever point it is you think you're making.

Well, what do you know? That's JUST LIKE the "TB2000 wackos" did (and don't be too sure that some of them weren't, in fact, "wackos"). Some things never change.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), December 11, 2000.