Burn Wood to Charge Your Phone – and Cook Breakfast (Videos)
Russ Chastain 02.22.16
Ever gone camping and needed power for your stuff? Most of the time, we could use a good way to charge things up. Smart phones are a source of entertainment, a useful way of journaling our experiences by keeping notes, and sometimes-vital links to the rest of the world. Unless you’re camping with your vehicle or in a cookie-cutter campground with electric hookup, you’ll need a way to charge your phone and other devices.
Batteries can be heavy and have limited capacity, and solar doesn’t always work. But most of the time you will have a fire. That’s where BioLite comes in. They offer wood-burning camp stoves that use the heat from the fire to generate electricity.
They even use some of their profits to supply larger similar stoves to folks who use indoor fires routinely (such as in third-world countries), in an attempt to reduce indoor air pollutants. More info on that is in the videos below.
The BioLite CampStove is a small stove that is designed to efficiently use small pieces of burning wood to generate heat for cooking and for generating power. It includes a flexible USB light that you can plug in, so you can see what you’re cooking while the fire itself generates the electricity. Sweet!
The manufacturer says:
The BioLite CampStove generates usable electricity for charging LED lights, mobile phones, and other personal devices. Burning only wood, the CampStove creates a smokeless campfire that can cook meals and boil water in minutes. Setup is easy, fuel is free, and flames are hyperefficient with performance on par with white gas stoves.
Note: While the manufacturer’s description above uses the word “smokeless,” at least one reviewer said that’s only true with certain wood.
Here’s a video about it:
Than there’s the BioLite BaseCamp, which it says is for “large format cooking & charging.” This one generates 5 watts, and even stores power. A flame damper allows you to go from grilling burgers on low heat to boiling water with direct flame. Collapsible legs allow adjustable height, and a bail-type “bucket handle” to make it easy to move. This one also includes a flexible USB LED light so you can see how to see.
The manufacturer says:
The BioLite BaseCamp is a complete off-grid cooking and energy solution for groups, powered by wood. Thoughtful features like folding legs and a one-touch grill-to-boil lever make it easy and comfortable to use while BioLite’s unique technology captures waste heat to produce electricity. The large cooktop and side fuel entry enable large-format cooking while an accompanying USB light aids in nighttime or low-light conditions.
Check out the Energy Bundle to get a bunch of goodies all at once: CampStove, Portable Grill, KettlePot, NanoGrid (3-in-1 Lantern/Torch/Powerbank plus two daisy-chain lights), and USB FlexLight.
They have a bunch of other stuff, too. You can check ’em out at their website.
