The State of Energy · Rocky Mountain Propane Association

Blackouts, Wildfires, and King of the Hill’s Propane Comeback

·25 min·4 clips

Randy Witt opens with a joke about Caitlin Clark looking like Tom Clark. He and Tom Clark spend a little time on summer grumbling, King of the Hill coming back, and the odd habit of stores putting out Halloween and Christmas stuff way too early. The mood stays loose and a little poking, which suits the show. Then the conversation turns to power, because power is the thing underneath everything else. They keep coming back to wildfire season and the way it exposes weak spots in the system. The grid feels strained, people are not ready for outages, and neither is government. From there the talk moves into the pressure to replace coal and natural gas generation with wind and solar. One figure they cite is 104 gigawatts of power being decommissioned while only 22 gigawatts take its place. Their point is that only a small slice of that replacement is firm base power. They pull the argument down to ordinary life. When electricity goes out, a lot of things stop. Propane becomes the backup plan and the practical answer. They talk about propane generators for homes and about propane use as one way to cut electricity demand. That is where the episode lands best. It is not abstract policy talk for its own sake. It is about keeping people powered when the grid fails and easing the load as more things get electrified. The show keeps the banter moving, but the point stays clear. Energy policy, weather, rates, and infrastructure all end up in the same place. The close gets personal, with a retirement shoutout for Boyd, a longtime friend who worked with Utah state fire marshal propane inspections and served on the Rocky Mountain Propane Association board. The episode wraps by inviting people to support him and signing off with the usual keep calm and propane on energy.

As heard by us

A propane-heavy episode that drifts from summer gripes into outages, grid strain, and practical preparedness.

King of the Hill chatter gives way to a familiar summer complaint: school starting too soon and Halloween decorations showing up before August is done. From there, the episode settles into propane, power, and why electricity keeps pulling the conversation back.

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Why you'd press play

You want grid anxiety served with propane jokes, summer grumbling, and no corporate polish.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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