Cut Emissions? Congress Itself Keeps Burning a Dirtier Fuel

[Rhiannon12866]

WASHINGTON — As part of the climate change agenda he unveiled this year, President Obama made a commitment to significantly reduce the federal government’s dependence on fossil fuels. The government, he said in a speech in June at Georgetown University, “must lead by example.”

But just two miles from the White House stands the Capitol Power Plant, the largest single source of carbon emissions in the nation’s capital and a concrete example of the government’s inability to green its own turf.

The plant, which provides heating and cooling to the sprawling Capitol campus — 23 buildings that include the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court and Congressional office buildings, in addition to the Capitol building itself — is operated by Congress, and its transition to cleaner energy sources has been mired in national politics for years. But the failure of Congress to modernize its own facility also raises questions about the Obama administration’s ability to limit emissions from existing power plants when it has not been able to do so at a government-run facility so close to home.

The office of the architect of the Capitol, which oversees the operations of the plant, first moved to end the use of coal there in 2000 but was turned back by resistance from powerful coal-state senators who wanted to keep it as the primary fuel. The effort was revived in 2007 as a central part of the Green the Capitol Initiative, led by Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker at the time. The effort was defunded in 2011 after the Republicans took control of the House.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/us/politics/just-across-town-a-test-of-obamas-emissions-goals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&



The Capitol Power Plant, which provides heating and cooling to the sprawling Capitol campus, is the largest single source of carbon emissions in Washington.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. That looks near where we parked!

[stuntcat]

2. We marched on that plant one time

With James Hansen, a few years ago.

[happyslug]

3. It is safe, until ocean levels raise above 13 meters (42 Feet).

http://flood.firetree.net/

At 13 meters (42 feet) it is still above sea level, but it is surrounded by the sea at that point. It is under water by 20 meters,

On the other hand, you can still reach the Capital at 30 meters by land, by 40 meters, the Capital is surrounded by water, but itself is still above sea level. The capital water is under water at 50 meters.

The White House is on a lower hill then the Capital, at 20 feet it is still above water, at 30 feet under water.

I mention this for if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses some March or April (when the surrounding sea shelf is at is smallest), that is expected to increase world wide sea levels about 7 meters or about 20 feet (yes, 7 meters do NOT equal 20 feet, but both are estimates and the error in the estimates exceed any difference in actual feet or meters).

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

Please note, under current theory, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been unstable since the collapse of the North American Ice Sheet about 10,000 years ago. On the other hand, its larger cousin, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is expected to EXPAND due to global warming (higher temperatures carry more water to Antarctica where it falls as snow, through this will be only a temporary event as global warming goes into high gear).

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is believed to have collapsed about 120,000 years ago, and that collapsed lead to a 20 foot increase in world wide sea levels, but within 100 years a 80 foot decrease in those sea levels with the ice age in full swing.

http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html

Present theory says the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapsed and opened up Antarctica to the ocean. This flooded the Southern Ocean and the South Pacific and Indian Oceans with iron and other trace minerals. These trace minerals was essential to life for are needed by algae to fix carbon from the air for their use. Today, the southern Pacific and Indian oceans are ocean "deserts" in that little algae exist in those location. These trace minerals bleach from the continents and into the ocean, where Algae picked them up and then pull carbon from the Atmosphere to produce more algae. The problem is the Southern Pacific and Indian Oceans are to far away from the continents for these trace minerals to reach them, thus those two areas are "Deserts".

What is believed to have happened 120,000 years ago, once the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed, it permitted a massive release of these trace minerals into the oceans. Once in the Southern Pacific and Indian oceans, these minerals permitted the algae in those areas to start to use carbon from the air to produce more algae. This had the slow effect (60=80 years) of reducing the temperature on the earth and start the Ice age.

With present increase in carbon usage, and the predicted increase in carbon usage that affect may not even slow down global warming. It is the basis of several plans to "seed" the oceans to reduce carbon in the air, but except for some experiments and at least one crackpot, this has NOT been done. Most scientist fear doing more harm then good. At one time it was believe only iron was needed, but some of the experiments indicate other elements are also needed. We have to be careful, one scientist said, give him one ton if iron he could start the next ice age (and the fear is that is all that is needed and given we do NOT know how much would be needed AND while global warming is bad, a global ice age would be worse). Please note, we do not mean using iron from the local steel works, we need iron in a form that plants can use. That is another huge question mark.

Just comments on Global warming and some of the theory of where it will take us.