The PowerPot: Cooking Pot and Gnerator

Not to be a "parade rainer oner"

but

a pot you want to put on the fire briefly, to heat up food

the thermoelectric device you'de want to leave on for hours

better to seperate the pot and thermoelectric device

I wonder how heavy the thermoelectric device is and how much charge you can get out of it, vs how heavy is it to just carry extra batteries

To add to Jerry's comments:

For developing world applications, a bike-powered generator has got to be cheaper and uses technology already in place.

For developed world emergency use, I suspect most people with modern gas ranges have one like mine–won't work without electricity. If I really needed to charge my cell phone during a power outage, I'd use my car and a cigarette lighter adapter.

For backpacking, a 12 oz cookpot is pointlessly heavy. Even if made lighter, can you realize significant weight savings vs. extra batteries if you have to carry extra fuel? Does this system really look like it would handle a wood fire?

On the other hand, they appear to have exceeded a pretty ambitious fund-raising target, so congrats.

I have one on order…
All the points raised above are valid but I am still curious to see if it can work for even a very small minority of hikers.
I have mentioned several times before that it is very easy to say that a product does not work for "me" however if it does work for some …well it works.
You obviously lose in fuel efficiency because there is that extra bit to warm up, so even at the same weight as a pot without it you will need to carry extra fuel and therefore extra weight.
Where I see some potential is possibly using a candle to generate enough power to charge the Li Ion battery and then use that to charge USB chargeable devices.
(that is cook you dinner and start the charge there, than just have some water in the pot and a 9 hour candle and keep charging)
So no good for just one device for a week at a time but possibly for a small group of people to charge several devices and particularly for those gizmo that have a built in (not interchangeable) battery.
The Bio Stove , wood burning version (same technology different mob) , on the other hand may appeal to more but still not most…
Franco

I can think of situations where this thing could be helpful, I'm a little sad to report that I won't be in any of them any time soon.

On a long trip (think over two weeks) done un-supported. I suppose it's worth mentioning that this is more often done with some other mode of travel than entirely on foot. I could see this thing working well for long canoe trips or kayak trips (which are not that rare in my part of the world) where you need to keep a sat. phone charged and maybe other electronics. In these cases it might be worthwhile to carry the extra fuel and use a stove, as that is probably cheaper than packing lots of specialized batteries. I could see these going on a lot of Alaskan expeditions where you need to coordinate air support, and river-rafting guides might find them quite helpful.

Using it on a fire might be tricky, but I suspect one of the little wood stoves recently reviewed here might work. Campers using heated tents (think Titanium Goat) might find one useful.

I also think this idea might be very applicable for small sailboats (which are also common where I live), particularly the larger one if it puts out 12v.

I like it. Ya, maybe a little a heavy for hiking but awesome for camping and everything else. In those situations where you really want power while on a hiking trip it would be worth the weight. In time the technology will bring the weight down too.
I like that any time of day and with any kind of heat source you will get 15 watts when you need it. I would get one if I had the cash.