[Stoves] Blow-suggestions without electricity

[William Carr]

On Dec 5, 2006, at 3:32 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:

> It is a surprise to me that once the stove is going, there is no  
> simple
> cheap device to make a couple of watts of electricity.


Cheap being the criteria?

Thermocouples work but produce milliwatts rather than watts.

There's a modified solar cell that is in use on some gas stoves,  
producing 100 watts from a small area, about 6x8 inches.

I can hardly believe it, but the manufacturer claims it's more than  
10 times as space-efficient as standard solar cells.

Just this week I read about a chip that was developed to do the same  
thing, produce watts from waste heat.

And off-topic perhaps, somebody just announced a 40% breakthrough  
solar cell.

As I mentioned, Photo-electric tech can be doped to work with Infra- 
red, so maybe the techniques from the high end will filter down after  
a few years.