Artful Dodger: Oh yes it can.. It certainly could take away the need for reliance of certain communities via solar, wind and through recycling their night soil, from the national grids.

At the moment our council burns most non recycled waste and turns that into energy rather than land fill.

It is possible for small communities to be pretty much energy reliant, as an example.. the first guy to put electric lights in his house, powered his house via a water wheel and dynamo system. No national grid, as it hadn't even been thought of.

Several people in the UK run their cars on recycled oil from the local chippy.

I imagine some guy owning a farm in the middle of the USA could if he wanted install enough to create a near or total independence from the power grid.