Ok Vorts, what do all you Big Guns (and you know who you are) have to say about using liquid N2 as a viable fuel source?
I believe liquid N2 is fairly cheap to make, costing around or slightly less than a gallon of milk volume wise. N2 is a commonly used product. It?s used in many applications from freezing sperm to making super conductive devices. N2 is a plentiful element. Seventy percent of our atmosphere comprises unbound nitrogen. No energy would be expended cracking N2 from other elements like O2 as we would have to do in order to get H2. I would imagine the most difficult stumbling blocks in running N2 based "steam" engines would be to make sure all the moving parts don't freeze up, literally, or that critical parts don't become too cryogenically brittle and shatter under normal stresses. Brings a whole new meaning to the word: "freezer burn". Ironic when one considers the fact that N2 typically doesn't burn or explode in a dangerous manner as combining oxygen and hydrogen would in our atmosphere. How much energy is expended producing liquid N2, and how would this potential resource compare to equivalent alternative fuel source energy carriers. Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
