Posted: October 23, 2023
Households and businesses in Burnet, Waco, College Station and many other communities throughout Central Texas trust the Star Tex Propane team for their fuel needs. We are proud to offer the region’s most dependable, reasonably-priced propane delivery.
With over 900,000 gallons of propane storage and more than three decades of delivering it, our team has a comprehensive understanding of this vital fuel. Here is a rundown of what propane is made of and where it comes from.
Propane is a flammable hydrocarbon gas used in a variety of residential and commercial functions, from grilling to super-efficient water heaters, indoor space heating solutions to stunning outdoor fire pits.
While propane is used in a gaseous form, it can be compressed as a liquid for transportation and on-site storage in tanks and cylinders. Propane has no natural odor, so producers generally add an agent to it to make it smell like rotten eggs or skunk spray so you can more easily identify a gas leak.
While propane and natural gas function similarly in many homes, they have key differences. Propane is denser than natural gas. It generates more than double the heat per cubic foot of natural gas. Propane also contains no methane (the primary component of natural gas), which is a potent greenhouse gas.
Nearly all the propane used in this country is domestically made. About three-quarters of American propane is a co-product of natural gas production. It comes from the same wells that extract natural gas (along with butane, ethane, pentane and other products). No additional drilling needs to be done.
Some propane is produced during crude oil refining. During the stabilization phase of the refining process, heavier hydrocarbons fall to the bottom, and lighter hydrocarbons, including propane, rise to the top.
An increasing amount of propane is coming from renewable sources.
The conventional propane described above already has a low carbon emissions impact — but it’s becoming even greener with the advent of renewable propane.
Renewable propane is molecularly identical to conventional propane, but it comes from organic and recycled products like those used for biodiesel. These feedstocks include:
Many renewable propane feedstocks are waste products that would otherwise end up in landfills. Renewable propane from domestic, non-rendered, used cooking oil has a carbon intensity (CI) score of roughly one-quarter that of conventional propane and roughly 15% the CI of Texas’s grid electricity. *
Though not widely used today, renewable propane’s production is growing each year.
When other fuel companies fall behind, Star Tex Propane gets customers the propane they need. We offer no-stress, no-fee Automatic Delivery to our customers. We’ll analyze your home’s fuel usage and develop a schedule that ensures you never run out. And you can qualify for a propane discount just for enrolling!
Interested in our Automatic Delivery service? Become a Star Tex customer today.
*Source: Propane Education & Research Council