How is this better, climate wise, than burning the methane directly? Methanol still has the same amount of carbon in it.
So, unless you're running the methane through a generator that burns it much more efficiently, like bitcoin miners are doing, we'd be better off bottling it up as methanol where it can be burned efficiently elsewhere.
The bigger impact is that it potentially creates a profit incentive to capture waste methane, so it's less likely that producers will cut corners and just let it vent. Why vent money into the atmosphere?
The open question is whether conversion to methanol and transportation will be cheap enough to actually generate a profit. If not, then it will be better off just getting burned on site.
Liquid gas is compressed methane, and some industries and cars already run by burning it. So the infrastructure already exists.
> You have to keep the liquefied gas sufficiently chilled all through transport
No, just compressed. Same as with hydrogen.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2021.6633...
Liquid methane is distributed refrigerated.
Liqified Petroleum Gas (LPG) is a mixture of propane and butane which does not require cryogenic storage and will remain liquid.
> Furthermore, methane collection from the atmosphere is critical for mitigating the negative consequences of climate change since the gas has 25 times the potential to contribute to global warming as CO2, for example.
No extra capture.