[yunohn]

The perspective I get from the article is of decentralized self sufficiency. Being able to harvest methane in their locality, and use that as fuel is quite appealing versus purchasing and installing solar panels or relying on power lines.

I’m not saying your math doesn’t check out; rather, the author is going for a different set pro/cons than just pure “efficiency”.

[jhgb]

I bet you'd still be able to do this in a local municipal biogas plant more efficiently. It would also scale better should you wish to run more than several mopeds like this.

[yunohn]

Again, that’s centralized. Less central than your previous example, but still requires a dependency on their municipal plant and power lines. Not sure why this is a confusing concept.

[jhgb]

The concept is not at all confusing, it's just useless. For load balancing, efficiency, and reliability reasons, a microgrid is more desirable than isolated households in pretty much all circumstances.