Nobel peace prize winners Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri and Jonathan Mann CNN in Oslo Dec 10, 2007 on decentralized, personal generation of electrical power:

GORE: [ .... ] Some of the new technological breakthroughs that we don't automatically think of could play a major role. Think of the computer revolution, for example. There used to be a half dozen computers in the world, each the size of a small building, and you had to go that place to use it. Now there are supercomputers by that measure by the hundreds of millions all around the planet. We still, however, think that we have to get our electricity from large, big structures that burn lots of coal or whatever, when actually some of the new breakthroughs that have much more efficiency, higher levels of conservation, make it possible to use breakthroughs that have massively distributed generating capacity. Small windmills, small solar panels of the next generation.

MANN: A personal generator.

PACHAURI: That's correct. As spread all around. Sharing through a smart grid that allows people, when they're used less, to sell unlimited quantities into the grid at a price that's set by [the deregulated market or] a public authority so that we might in many areas never need another central station generating plant.