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The lower shear forces and more efficient thermal conduction of helium also mean the drive will run cooler and will emit less acoustic noise.
ENGADGET: HGST develops helium-filled, high-capacity hard drives: no, they won't float away
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There are many nontrivial ancillary challenges too, especially the secondary procedure of actually getting the energy out of the reactor into a useful form, i.e. heat to drive steam-turbines as with all other kinds of thermal power stations, to generate electricity.
FORBES: U.K. And U.S. Join Forces on Laser-Fusion Energy
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So, even if we drive our vehicles with methane -and use solar thermal for home heating and hot water, we will not increase demand for methane.
FORBES: Natural Gas Could Be The Next Big Thing For Cars, But Probably Won't Be
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Although solar panels will work on spacecraft at that distance, the desire for sufficient energy to drive many instruments means any mission would really need to go with radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) - solid state electrical generators powered by the heat of radioactive decay.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Europe tells US: 'Come to Europa'
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Tellingly, about two-thirds of bids for solar energy contracts last year (by electricity generated) were for photovoltaic projects and only a third were for solar thermal power plants, which deploy vast arrays of mirrors to heat liquids and produce steam to drive an electricity-generating turbine.
FORBES: California Reveals Price It Pays For Renewable Energy