There are pros and cons to oil, and there are certainly reasons to use it even if they don't happen to apply to you. Oil can't explode. Oil can be carried in a

There are pros and cons to oil, and there are certainly reasons to use it even if they don't happen to apply to you. Oil can't explode. Oil can be carried in as low tech as a pail and stored in an equally low tech tank (where a gas pipe doesn't exist or could fail, where a propane bottle requires a lot more infrastructure). And these are valuable even in developed areas with gas pipes, because it's always valuable to have that flexability to scrounge up milk jugs and drive them in your car, or a bike, when things aren't all perfect. Just on principle even if you never have to do it. Similarly, there are reasons why the best way to distribute the heat around the building is actually not any form of hot water or air but ancient steam. I still look forward to outfitting a house with a fancy buried ground glycol loop heat pump and in-floor water, not oil fired steam, but that's because I can afford to be impractical and I don't kid myself that it's anything else.