The propane industry is trying to dupe you
A still from PERC marketing for propane energy. Photograph: Screenshot of Perc marketing/HEATED
Documents and recordings obtained by HEATED detail a multi-million dollar plan to spin the fossil fuel as "clean" and "renewable"
This story is co-published with the Guardian.
Members of a propane industry lobbying group strategized to downplay the full climate impacts of propane and market it as renewable or “clean energy,” recordings by HEATED and the Guardian reveal.
The Propane Education & Research Council (PERC), a U.S. lobbying group, has spent nearly $30 million over the last two years on advertisements for the fossil fuel, according to data compiled by Drilled, a multimedia reporting project focused on climate accountability. The ads often promote propane, the vast majority of which is a byproduct of natural gas or crude oil refining, as a form of clean and renewable energy.
But in a public November 2022 meeting recorded by the Energy and Policy Institute, PERC board members acknowledged that that characterization was inaccurate.
“Twenty-five percent [of people consider] natural gas to be renewable, in this millennial and gen Z bucket,” an unidentified PERC board member said. “There’s a perception out there—not reality, but that’s perception. We can attach to that for propane.”
“You can’t say natural gas is renewable,” PERC board member Leslie Woodward cautioned.
“Perception,” the unidentified board member repeated.
Erin Hatcher, PERC’s senior vice president of communications and marketing, agreed that propane should be perceived as clean energy. “We don’t want to be in that coal bucket,” she is heard saying on the recording. “We want to be in that clean energy bucket.”
In a comment to HEATED and the Guardian, Hatcher said she “did not recall any kind of comment” about mistaking propane as renewable. “Our concern about perception is that all fuels are demonized.”
She added: “There’s no attempt to mislead whatsoever. It’s to educate, because the narrative that predominates the news is that there’s only one way to a clean future, and we don’t believe that.” Woodward did not respond to requests for comment, and Hatcher said she couldn’t identify the other board members who spoke at the meeting.
A 17-fold increase in ‘greenwashing’ advertising
To stabilize a safe climate, scientists say the world’s energy systems must reach net zero greenhouse emissions by the year 2050. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said achieving net zero by 2050 will require “a substantial reduction of overall fossil fuel use.”
Propane is a fossil gas, commonly liquefied for use in heating and cooking. Typically a by-product of natural gas or crude oil refining, propane can also be made from non-fossil sources like plant, seed and animal oils—though currently, only 0.04% of it is, according to estimates from the EPA and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Most propane—even “renewable propane” made from plants or cooking oil—emits carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and other environmentally harmful fossil fumes. Propane made from fossil fuels emits less carbon than coal or diesel, but more than natural gas when burned as fuel, according to the EIA. In 2022, CO2 emissions from propane in the U.S. were a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions from other fossil fuels, but that’s because the U.S. consumes far less propane than gas and oil—not because propane is necessarily cleaner.
Still, PERC has invested millions in a multi-year strategy to rebrand propane from what it’s called a “dirty fossil fuel” to a so-called clean energy source. According to Drilled, PERC’s annual ad spending increased more than 17-fold from 2021 to 2022-23, from $1.7 million to nearly $30 million.
In 2022 and 2023, PERC bought ads touting the “clean energy” potential of propane across 450 media properties, according to Drilled’s data, including more than $9 million on YouTube channels, including YouTube Kids; $4.7 million on Fox News; $2.6 million on Southern Living; $1.5 million on NBC; $979,000 on USA Today; and $746,000 on ESPN.
A spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, said the company bans ads that deny climate change, or ads that claim human beings or greenhouse gases don’t contribute to global warming. “This policy does not prohibit other climate-related topics, including promotions of various energy sources,” the spokesperson said.
Fox News, Southern Living, NBC, USA Today, and ESPN did not respond to requests for comment.