BBCNews has run two articles in the last two days about new efforts for producing electricity from organic waste. While one effort is a power plant fueled by animal waste which would be useful for residences and businesses, the other is a small battery using E coli. bacteria to generate electricity from sugar (though they plan to move up to carrots soon). The small battery could conceivably be used with portable devices such as laptops.

Article 1 - Energy from farm slurry.

Article 2 - Energy from leftover food.