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Spewing fire is done while exhaling. The same mechanisms that push air out of the lungs push the acetylene out too, when the creature wants to. Since this is mutually exclusive with inhaling, the...
Answer
#1: Initial revision
by
Olin Lathrop
·
2024-09-06T12:51:55Z (4 months ago)
Spewing fire is done while exhaling. The same mechanisms that push air out of the lungs push the acetylene out too, when the creature wants to. Since this is mutually exclusive with inhaling, there shouldn't be much of a problem. The overall effect would be very similar to a circus performer doing "fire breathing". They usually inhale propane or similar, then ignite it just outside the mouth when exhaling. In this case, they actually breathed in the flammable gas, so lost even more breathing capacity than your creature. They can't do this continually, of course, but that's not much of a limitation. Your creature would need some time to produce more acetylene anyway. Another separate point is that producing oxygen and combining that with the acetylene inside is a bad idea, and unnecessary anyway. There is plenty of oxygen available in the air. All the creature needs to do is provide the acetylene and an ignition source. With the fire therefore always outside the body, things become much safer, easier to implement, and require significantly less energy to produce.