Largely because of their simple construction and/or their lack of any moving parts, TEMs are compact, rugged, low weight, acoustically silent, do not mechanically vibrate, of moderate cost, reliable, maintenance free, and long-lasting. Moreover, TEMs are scalable (from mm-scale footprint de- vices to meter-scale footprint arrays), produce essentially no electrical noise, and, unless toxic thermoelectric materials are used, are environmentally friendly. Since gravity does not affect TEMs, they are operable in any orientation and under microgravity conditions. Furthermore, by varying the number of pellets in a TEM, its operating voltage in cooling and heating modes and output voltage (power) in generation mode are tunable to an extent. Finally, TEMs are inherently versatile as the same module may be operated in cooling, heating, or generation modes.