The State of Energy · Rocky Mountain Propane Association

Cold Buses, Cheap Gas, and Bold Energy Predictions- New Years Episode

·26 min·8 clips

Randy Witt kicks off the show with Tom Clark in full New Year’s mode and lands a joke that loosens the whole table right away. The conversation starts with ball-drop stories and stays pleasantly unruly. Tom describes a Times Square New Year’s experience and makes it clear it was the sort of thing you do once, then never again. Randy keeps the banter moving, then steers it toward energy security. The pitch is simple enough to say out loud. If the grid gets hit by weather, cyber trouble, or some other mess, propane gives a home or business a way to keep operating on site. That idea becomes the spine of the episode. They treat propane as practical insurance, not just a fuel. Backup generators come up quickly. So do propane appliances, on-site heat, and the basic comfort of not depending on the outside wires every second of the day. Randy pushes the point hard, because that is the point. Then the San Francisco blackout enters the chat. A large outage takes out traffic lights, rattles pedestrians, and leaves Waymo cars frozen in intersections, blocking traffic. The image does a lot of work. It turns a utility problem into something anyone can picture. The discussion keeps widening from there. They talk about propane-powered vehicles and the idea that fleets can convert right now instead of waiting for some future miracle. Price logic gets its turn too. Electric rates are up, gas prices are down, and propane prices are stable, which makes the fuel look attractive in their telling. A Las Vegas propane taxi example gets used as proof that this is not a fantasy. It is already happening. The episode keeps looping back to homes, businesses, farms, and fleets because that is how the argument is built. Heat, hot water, electricity, and transportation all get folded into the same pitch. Randy and Tom also keep the tone light enough to dodge the sermon trap. They tease, they exaggerate, they toss in a few digressions, and they let the banter do some of the persuasion. By the end, the message is blunt. If you want resilience, propane is the answer they keep returning to. The last stretch doubles down on that claim and treats the coming year as a chance to convert more systems, more vehicles, and more buildings. The close lands as a challenge as much as a recommendation. It is part advocacy, part radio riff, and part market argument, which is exactly why it sounds like them.

As heard by us

A propane pitch that is strongest when outages and prices are the concern.

The episode makes a plain case for propane as backup power, fleet fuel, and a way to keep homes or workplaces running when the grid fails. It keeps circling the same practical concern: what happens when outages interrupt systems people depend on, and what it takes to stay ready.

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Why you'd press play

You want a rowdy propane pitch that turns New Years banter into energy-security talk.

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