Reply #28: Don't bet your life on the "fact" you just cited.

[Tesha]

> Propane puts off virtually no carbon monoxide

Don't bet your life on the "fact" you just cited.
*ANY* hydrocarbon, burned in the presence of limited
oxygen, can result in Carbon Monoxide being produced.

(Hint: A Propane molecule contains three carbon atoms
and eight hydrogen atoms. A "gasoline" molecule typically
contains between eight and ten carbon atoms and eighteen
and twenty two hydrogen atoms.)

As you burn *ANY* hydrocarbon fuel in an enclosed space,
the oxygen in the space is consumed as two oxygen atoms
bond with one carbon atom to form CO₂ and one oxygen
atom bonds with two hydrogen atoms to form H₂O.

But as there's less and less oxygen available, the carbon
reaction starts to shift to only one oxygen atom bonding
with each carbon atom, producing CO. Produce enough of
that and the occupants of the enclosed space die.

Propane has some advantage over gasoline because, in propane,
there's proportionally less carbon and more hydrogen, but
methane is even better (with one carbon and four hydrogens).
Yet each winter, people still die of CO poisoning when the
vents from their natural gas (methane) burning furnaces
become blocked by snow.

Tesha