Where I live, everyone used to have a coal fired boiler. There are still coal mines in operation all over as well. Coal is relatively inexpensive, depending on type of coal, but it is very dirty. Wood burners and boilers are another heating system commonly used around here, but mainly as a back up or supplemental heat. The most common around here is oil. In a very small rural area, there are four oil companies.
I never said that propane wasn't more efficient or too expensive, just that it is expensive. It isn't cheap.
This is what I learned about propane: wikipedia - an unreliable source at times
Propane is produced as a byproduct of two other processes: natural gas processing and petroleum refining.
The processing of natural gas involves removal of butane, propane, and large amounts of ethane from the raw gas, to prevent condensation of these volatiles in natural gas pipelines. Additionally, oil refineries produce some propane as a by-product of production of cracking petroleum into gasoline or heating oil.
The supply of propane cannot be easily adjusted to account for increased demand because of the by-product nature of propane production. About 90% of U.S. propane is domestically produced.
The United States imports about 10% of the propane consumed each year with about 7% of that coming from Canada via pipeline and rail. The remaining 3% of imported propane comes to the United States from other sources via ocean transport.
After it is produced, North American propane is stored in huge salt caverns located in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada, Mont Belvieu, Texas, and Conway, Kansas. These salt caverns were hollowed out in the 1940s[2] and can store up to 80 million barrels of propane, if not more. When the propane is needed, most of it is shipped by pipelines to other areas of the Midwest, the North, and the South, for use by customers. Propane is also shipped by barge and rail car to selected U.S. areas.[citation needed]
