Thrifty Propane - There is only one chemical that is propane: C₃H₈, found in nature, bound up with natural gas. In 1932, the Gas Processors’ Association published a standard for propane, GPA 2140, that has been the standard ever since. This standard requires that the propane that is drawn out of the “raw make,” the natural gas that comes from the ground, be tested, and that the material tested be at least 90% chemical propane and no more than 5% propylene and no more than 5% other gases, including ethane and butane. Gas processors have strictly adhered to this standard, because the only way they have to transport the gas is over “common carrier” pipelines, that require that every customer of the pipeline have equal access to the pipeline. Because of the length of time it takes to pump propane from Texas to where it used in the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard, customers would have to wait days and even weeks for the gas they bought in Texas, where the propane is stored, to arrive at the terminals where they picked it up. In the middle of winter, such a system would never work. To solve the problem, the gas transporters made the propane “fungible:” all the propane would be identical, so that the gas a customer picked up in Pennsylvania was identical to the gas stored in Texas. To make all the gas identical, the transporters required that all the propane be HD5 propane, and they tested it to make sure that all the propane that went into their pipeline began as HD5 and remained HD5 so long as it was in their pipelines. Homeowners benefited from this business requirement with access to pure HD5 propane.  Thrifty Propane

        By contrast, since 1975, oil refineries were able to take advantage of the definition of propane in the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standard, ASTM Standard D1835, to market oil refining “odds and ends,” known by chemical engineers as “slop,” because they could claim that the slop fit the definition of “commercial grade” propane: any hydrocarbon mixture that held a flame. Such a hydrocarbon mixture need not contain a single molecule of chemical propane, and could contain any poison that came out the top of a refinery column. This slop used to be flared off, simply to pollute the air. But when the sulfur was taken out, beginning in 1971, the refineries saw how they could profit from this waste product by selling it to their allies, the publicly-traded major propane marketers, who would drastically mark it up and sell it to house holders as propane. This poisonous slop is marketed throughout the Midwest and East, wherever the marketers can reach, as propane. Slop may be marketed with particular impunity in the so-called "dump ground" states in which there is no regulation of fuel products. In these states,Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Indiana, fuel products that cannot be sold elsewhere are marketed to those who do not know they have a choice. In fact, waste product is piped into Ohio from Texas and Canada for sale as propane to Ohio residents. Residents of these states must be particularly vigilant regarding their fuel products. For residents of these "dump ground" states the difference between HD5 and "commercial grade" propane is particularly important. Thrifty Propane