Has anyone done any research on removing you house from the power grid and using a diesel generator as a sole means of powering a house. I know it can be done if you have a battery backup to store power for low-load times, so it can componsate for high-load times.
I know commercial diesel generators are expensive, and even running homebrewed bio-d wont pay for itself, but the idea of being energy independant is enticing.
Also, would it be better for the atmosphere? I have been unable to find out how much pollution is generated per kw/h of grid power, because it come from a mix of plants and is dependant on area. Would a bio-d generator be better or worse?

Most of the older remote ranch operations that I have visited in the west are powered directly by diesel generators running 24hrs/day - 365 days/year. One of the newest realy nice $250,000 remote ranchouse was built about 10 years ago and uses solar panels/batteries/power inverters for the main ranchouse general power and propane for the heating and lighting (millionares toy). For general ranch power diesel generators are used, some fixed, some portable, mostly 3 cylinder 1800 rpm 8-10 KW units, a smaller 5KW single cylinder gasoline generator is fired up at the house to run the washing machine and dryer when these heavier loads are needed.

Polution is not a consideration under these applications. These are all run on normal diesel fuel or gasoline, the cost of fuel and maintanance is an expense to the ranch therefore it is write-offable on there taxes.

There are several "diesel generator" (do a "find " search for "generator" or "listeroid") discussions on this forum. There are several folks are powering there off-grid living with used veg directly or biodiesel in big slow soeed generators.