To make the climate argument, while it’s true that methane is being used to generate electricity, and there are losses that come from transmitting electricity,

To make the climate argument, while it’s true that methane is being used to generate electricity, and there are losses that come from transmitting electricity, switching to electricity overall reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere. Because methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, even small leaks of methane have an outsized impact. When methane leak rates exceed 2.7% of the amount burned [1], it has worse warming impacts than burning coal. Having a network of pipes going to individual residences will introduce many joints and fittings, all of which leak. Even behind the meter residences leak up to 1.3 % of what they burn [2]. Even if you were to burn methane to generate electricity, even if there are efficiency losses to generation and transmission, it’s better to send that methane to one destination to be burned, than to thousands just to prevent the potential for it to leak out into the atmosphere. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-leaks-erase-some-of-the-climate-benefits-of-natural-gas/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-leaks-era... [2] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707