PORTLAND, N.D. - It is 3:33 a.m., and I am sitting at the table with my sweatshirt on and hood up, worried about some of my fellow North Dakotans staying warm for the next few months.
We have hit a nationwide shortage of propane, and prices are jumping exponentially.
This is due to an unhappy confluence of events unprecedented in my seven decades, but a couple of the exacerbating circumstances happen often - namely, the drying of our corn crop used more propane than usual, and the cold weather came and stayed in North Dakota with a vengeance.
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What is rarer is that the cold extended farther into the United States than usual and is not letting go, while at the same time, we produced so much propane due to fracking oil shale formations that the prices dropped enough to make exporting propane profitable.
Last year, we eliminated our 5 percent quota on exporting propane, and current estimates have us exporting about 30 percent of our production.
Put all these circumstances together, and you’ve got prices that in a few weeks have roughly quadrupled. I expect them to continue to climb.
How to deal with this problem? Common sense dictates that we users of propane will turn thermostats down at home, schools, businesses and churches. Mine is now at 65 degrees, and my wife just looked at me when I proposed further tweaks down the dial.
We know about banking snow and insulation where we live and about closing off nonessential rooms, but these and other measures may not be enough to get us through these next few months.
We are going to have to use North Dakota Nice. That means taking a deep breath when we pay or go into debt to heat our spaces. It means not shooting the messenger when he comes to put some propane in your tank, and not ranting at the manager who may not have found some propane for your driver to put in the tank.
It means looking out for your neighbors, especially the elderly and poorer people with children. If we run out, we even may have to consider temporarily taking people into our homes, as we did during that April in 1997 when the big blizzard hit, the power went out for a week and then Grand Forks was evacuated.
North Dakota Nice evolved here because our savage weather forces us to depend on one another from time to time. Our sparse population also contributes to this behavior; it’s hard to live rudely when we are the only people we see day after day.
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This is a very short-lived situation, but it is upon us, and many who do not count on propane to heat their homes may not know about it. As for me, my propane tank is half full, and my small woodstove needs fuel as well.
Today I call upon our governors and Congress to ask the president to consider temporarily suspending exports by executive order, if indeed that surplus could instead be distributed into the domestic network for the next month or two.
In 22 states, the U.S. Department of Transportation already has suspended the time limits that control how long propane truck drivers can stay on the road. Tennessee has schools that are closing because residences are a priority. Indiana reports that some customers are hostile. (Hoosiers, don’t ya know.)
For the curious, the North Dakota Pipeline Authority told me a natural gas pipeline costs roughly $75,000 per inch per mile. That means, for instance, that a four-inch pipe costs about $300,000 per mile.
That’s one of the major reasons why small towns not near our larger cities remain unserved by natural gas pipelines. The cost/benefit analysis is not yet adequate, although there have been requests for natural gas service since the 1930s.
In North Dakota, it is doubly frustrating because we are flaring enormous amounts of natural gas, of which propane is a byproduct. This is happening because we permit drilling before the capacity to contain it is built.
We are in the dead of winter, and the forecast is not good. Patiently help each other get through this, please.
In a few hours, I am going out to try and start my chain saw.
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Murphy, a Democrat, represents District 20 in the North Dakota Senate.
