If you’re like many of our customers, you want to ensure that you’re keeping your home and family warm in a way that doesn’t harm the environment. Climate change is a significant threat to our planet. We need to do all we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Happily, the propane gas that Dixon Energy delivers in Morris, Somerset, Union and Sussex counties is a part of the green energy solution. In fact, propane has been listed as an alternative fuel in the 1990 Clean Air Act and the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
Today, conventional propane (as opposed to renewable propane) is a co-product of natural gas extraction and oil refining. From a conservation standpoint, this means that no new drilling happens in propane production. Also, virtually all the propane the U.S. consumes is produced domestically. This is good news on multiple fronts: it limits how much transportation is involved in getting propane to you and somewhat insulates its price from global energy markets.
Propane is an incredibly clean-burning and efficient home energy source. Conventional propane has a much lower carbon intensity (CI) than gasoline, diesel and even New Jersey’s grid electricity. While natural gas has a lower CI than propane, natural gas is primarily composed of methane, a potent greenhouse gas over 80 times more powerful at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 20-year period. Propane contains no methane. It also emits virtually no particulate matter, a known carcinogen.
You’ll be happy to hear that today’s propane systems and appliances have exceptional fuel efficiencies. So, you’re losing very little heat energy out of your chimney during combustion. That’s a win for the planet and your home budget!
While conventional propane is already environmentally friendly, renewable propane promises a new level of sustainability and emissions reductions.
Renewable propane is made from many of the same organic feedstocks as biodiesel, including cooking grease, animal fats, woody biomass, municipal waste and plant oils. Many of these feedstocks are waste products, and there has been promising research into camelina sativa, which requires little water and grows on fallow land.
Renewable propane has a much smaller carbon impact. Typical renewable propane derived from domestic, non-rendered, used cooking oil has less than one-quarter the CI of New Jersey’s grid electricity. And there is research underway that should take it even lower.
Renewable and conventional propane are molecularly identical, so you can use them in a propane appliance without modification. While renewable propane isn’t widely used in homes yet, U.S. producers made about 4.6 million gallons in 2021. And production is only going up!
Do you use propane to warm your home, heat your water and power appliances? Not only does Dixon Energy provide the most dependable propane delivery in northern New Jersey; we also have an experienced team of technicians who can ensure you’re using your fuel efficiently. Our top-tier maintenance service will keep your heating equipment working at peak performance. We can also help you upgrade to the latest high-efficiency systems and lower your fuel consumption for years to come!
Reach out to us today to request service.