With today's environment-conscious attitudes, it pays to have an eco-friendly vehicle to drive.

A time may come when people may have a number of options to choose from aside from solar-powered cars, as scientists are now looking into thermoelectric generation as a possible alternative. More on this highfalutin term after the jump.

With the world always on the look out for alternative fuel sources, Sony Japan may have come across a sweet new power source that certainly won't run out any time soon. It was announced recently that they have been able to generate the world's highest output of bio-electricity from a sugar-based battery.

While 50mW per cell may not seem like a lot, being able to find an easily renewable and ample resource as a source for electricity will definitely help a lot with the global power needs. Don't expect your TV or refrigerator to be powered by a bar of Hershey chocolate just yet. The batteries themselves are rather bulky, measuring at 39mm on each side.

Although the press release site itself is in Japanese, you can try to understand the theory behind the "sugar battery" with a little help from any online language translator. So until Sony develops something a little more portable, we'll all have to stick to our Eveready batteries in the meantime.

For a look at the new battery in action, check out the video right after the jump!

The concept of family and being connected is one of the philosophical points behind the name "Wii", and today Nintendo has released more details on how they intend to bring people together through their next-gen console. From the sound of things, the Wii isn't just looking to take over the gaming market, but they're taking a stab at your refrigerator as well. Having been a long standing center of family communication (how many notes and reminders do you have on YOUR fridge?), your Kenmore may be taking a back seat.

Satoru Iwata sees the Wii's message board "helping everyone in the family communicate with each other. These days, because everyone is so busy, it is becoming more and more difficult for people to take the time to sit around the table and chat." You can also expect plenty on online interaction, including notifications from your friends when they've picked up a new game, as well as exchanging data and screenshots.

And you don't even have to be near your console to make use of the Message Board since it will operate similar to your basic email systems, meaning you can send messages back and forth between the Wii and Mobile phones.

Now on to a feature that may be loved by some, hated by others - especially those of you with homework to do. The Play History feature is pretty much what it sounds like, a data tracking system that can tell you how much a game has been played. All these records can be viewed by parents, so if you're ditching your chores to play on the Wii, the chances are you'll be found out. It was even proposed that parents be given the option of having the system shut down after a certain amount of play time, but that idea didn't make it off the drawing boards.

Was that a sigh of relief I just heard? Read on for the full interview!

(Thanks for the tip, badam!)

Most geothermal sources are suitable for power generation - those with temperatures above 300°F - are waaaaay down underground, beyond the reach of current technology. Bad news for those looking for relatively clean sources of electricity.

Lower-temperature resources on the other hand are quite common across the United States However, if the Engineers at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), have their way, those not-so-hot resources can be tapped for energy as well.

The modular, 200-kilowatt power plant from UTRC can generate juice from temperatures as low as 165°F. The technology is similar to steam engines, except that steam or hot water vaporizes a hydroflourocarbon refrigerant that drives the turbine. It's basically like a reverse cooling system, and the new turbine is a refrigerator compressor running backwards.

They're now testing a unit at a remote hot springs resort 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. They estimate that a commercial plant could be ready as early as next year... of course after they've worked out the chinks.

The reverse cooling concept isn't new, it's just that so far, nobody has come up with a cost-efficient model. In fact, most of Western united states have low-temperature geothermal sources. But if the model succeeds then we could be looking at a huge secondary source of energy.

I wonder how things will go if they manage to combine this technology with this. We know that those really small turbines don't exactly run on steam, but what if?

Theoretical Physicists Chris Van den Broeck and Ryoichi Kawai are toying with the idea of creating the world's smallest refrigerator. But before you get excited, you'd have to keep in mind that it would take some spectacularly cunning molecular engineering to make the nano device a reality.

The proposed miniature fridge will rely on the random jittering of molecules known as brownian motion, named after the botanist Robert Brown who discovered that bits of pollen under a microscope wouldn't stop jigging around. In general, the faster the molecules move, the higher their temperature. To set the proposal in motion, the mini fridge will use a tiny paddle wheel to speed up the molecules in one pool to suck the energy of a neighboring one. This idea reverses a previous notion about how to use two pools with different temperatures to make a mini motor.

In Van den Broeck and Kawai's model, here's how it works: The two pools start out at the same temperature. Then a motor is used to drive the bottom paddle wheel around counter-clockwise. One principle of thermodynamics says that the system will respond by trying to induce a counteractive force in a clockwise direction. This can happen if the bottom pool gets much hotter than the top one.
The intriguing thing is that the researchers calculate, using standard equations of thermodynamics, that this can not only heat up the bottom pool, but actually cool the top one down.

Making a device to drive a mini wheel around is the tricky part. Lasers or magnets might be used but they're considered borderline of what's feasible. Oh well, they're theoreticians, so they really don't have to bother with reality. So, I guess your nano beers would just have to wait.