this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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Found this on the lowtech magazine. What are your toughts?

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (20 children)

A 2015 prototype, in which a wood stove used for cooking and space and water heating was equipped with 21 thermoelectric modules cooled by a pumped water system, showed a power production from 25W (burning 1 kg of pine wood per hour) over 70W (4 kg wood/hour) to 166W (9 kg wood/hour).

So, it takes burning 1kg of wood to generate 25 Wh, or 90kJ. One kilo of wood contains, roughly, 20.000kJ of energy. That's about 0.5%.

It's fine if you want heat at that time, but quite a bit power demand is when you don't need any heat.

It also creates huge problems with particulate pollution that are tied with all fossil fuel heating systems.

[–] A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago (19 children)

I can see that being used in rural areas where wood is abundant. We need a alternate for urban areas tho

[–] YeahToast@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

166W an hour? You can power a laptop and a light for that. What on earth were they smoking to say this is worthwhile..

[–] WaterWaiver@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Unit pedant here: Just 166W. Watts are joules per second (they already have time in them, adding another unit of time confuses things).

This might seem silly, but it will help avoid confusion when you encounter Wh (watts * hours).

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