When the life gives you heat, make electricy.

[Mipe]

After all those complaints and horror stories involving heat in 1.0, I've remembered this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

Why not make a part to convert heat into electric charge and capitalize on the heat?

[RainDreamer]

The stock PB-Nuk is an RTG that use thermoelectric effect. Reentry heat is too hot to safely use (there is a reason why we need a heatshield and not a heat sink for energy creation) and too brief for any significant electric generation (since the efficiency is, as noted in the wiki, about 5-8%).

[tater]

Unless you use the electricity to radiate, it doesn't change anything.

[Temeter]

Guess you could then use a drills heat generation to power it. Otherwise I don't really see the purpose. Nuclear engines already have alternators and produce electricity (which is rarely needed thanks to solar panels). Might make sense as a emergency generator to keep the reaction wheels running during reentry, but that one is easily solved by a few light batteries.

[Whirligig Girl]

You can't change heat directly to electricity, you need a change of heat. Radiators allow a change of heat. That's what those fins on the PB-NUK RTG are. There's not really a good way to use radiators to produce heat from anything but that radioisotope decay. Radiators, however, would be REALLY good to have to disperse heat, and the first stockalike mod to include functional radiators will be a must-have until 1.1, assuming they add radiators then.