Portable heating with batteries!!!

[TurkishMonky]

For all the engineers out there i was wondering two things:
what is the best way to create heat energy from a C battery? i think it would have somthing to do with a thin coil of iron or steel, but corrct me if i'm wrong. also, how much heat would this give off, approxamately? enough to warm one's hands?

and please forgive me if i seem like a spacy nerd for wondering about this unusual process.

[Warrior4Christ]

Heating requires many Watts... and a C cell might supply like 1W? (very rough estimate, that would have a 2.25 ohm internal resistance). So you would probably need many of them connected together or a different power source.

[TurkishMonky]

ok, thanks. just ws wondering (i have like 100 half-dead c batteries lying around, tring to think of a use for them)

would burning them do better? :-)

[shooraijin]

Applying heat to batteries is a very bad idea (but I figured you knew that already).

[Warrior4Christ]

But.... A 5W resistor is very hot to touch when it's radiating 5W... but the heat doesn't radiate that well; it just sits around the resistor. So even low power outputs may work (maybe).