Over the past few years, there has been a trend to use thermoelectrics for generating power from waste heat or coupling the thermoelectrics with fossil fuel driven appliances or Diesel engines to make them more efficient and/or independent of outside power. PbTe based alloys are being considered for some of these applications. Presented below are some of the techniques that have been pursued in making electrical contacts. Because PbTe can be used up to ∼ 600°C, these alloys offer more efficiency than the (Bi,Sb)2 (SeTe)3 based alloys which are only useful to <300° C. Unfortunately, at these h~gher temperatures, the PbTe based alloys need to be encapsulated to prevent oxidation. This latter step is not addressed in this paper, but can significantly add to the price of a PbTe generator.