Now here is something you don't see every day.  A thermoelectric device every cat should have.  I'll let the citation and abstract speak for themselves:

Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore has called for America to abandon all fossil fuels for the production of electricity within 10 years.  He envisions a combination of solar, wind and geothermal renewable energy sources to produce all electricity in the US.

The audacity of thermionic hope?

A reader called to my attention the 'The Thermionic Revolution' website which includes what sounds like an endorsement from friend and esteemed authority Gerry Mahan as well as the following claims:

"A simple way has been found that promises to make cheap abundant electricity from the heat in air

A few weeks ago I noted the recent discovery of some new quaternary iron-based superconductors which might be of interest for thermoelectrics.  David Bérardan tells me his group had already initiated studies and have a paper currently in the "early view" section of physica status solidi (RRL):

Rattler

Ulysess, the NASA/ESA mission to study the sun will end on or about July 1, 2008.  The spacecraft has exceeded the design lifetime by nearly four times.  The first mission to study the sun from above and below the solar poles, Ulysess utilized a gravitational 'slingshot' around Jupiter to get out of the solar system's ecliptic plane and eventually enter a solar orbit past the north and south solar poles.

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