  A new approach to thermoelectric phenomena, as a linear transport process of
non-equilibrium charge carriers, is presented. The role of non-equilibrium
carriers, as well as surface and bulk recombination, is demonstrated to be
crucial even within a linear approximation. Electron and hole Fermi
quasi-levels appeared in a thermal field are calculated in the case of
thermoelectric current flow through a circuit. It is shown, for the first time,
that the Fermi quasi-level of one of subsystem of quasi-particles can be a
non-monotonic function of the coordinates. General expressions for the
thermoelectric current, thermo-e.m.f., and electrical resistance of bipolar
semiconductors have been obtained. For the first time the surface recombination
and surface resistance were taken into account.
