Well that's dumb.
For heating applications, it's much better to burn the fuel at point of use, then use it to make electricity first and incur Carnot cycle losses and transmission losses. Of course, that assumes that we are still burning things for electric power, and haven't done the sane, rational thing and use atomic energy... Something Matt probably also disagrees with.
Also, who is Matt Bruenig and why should I concern myself with what he thinks? Sounds like a community organizer sort, lots of talk, no action.