White it would be prettiful, it wouldn't exactly be kind on most graphics cards (I have an 8800GT, which is... ok, nowadays, and some of my larger battles/missions I cook up can slow it down by a good amount with all the pew-pew action... even too many thrusters on-screen will lag it however).
On an unrelated note, it would mean you're venting atmosphere continuously from those holes, which wouldn't make sense after a large amount of time because either your ship has a robot crew (but then why do you need the atmosphere?), or everyone died of explosive decompression or asphyxiation (but then how is your ship flying?).
Maybe if you had a small amount of smoke following battledamage, representing combustion that can take place while you have atmosphere leaking from parts of the ship that have not been sealed off, but it would fade off after a few seconds. This would also prevent it from being too taxing.
However, this would at any rate be a pretty low priority, being only a visual enhancement.