Closing Down the Capitol Power Plant: Activists target DC powerplant for symbolic statement

"They are calling it one of the biggest U.S. protests on climate change _ hundreds of activists gathered around a tiny power plant in Southeast Washington that heats and cools the Capitol.

While small in size, the 99-year-old facility is a symbol of the challenges ahead for Congress on energy and the climate.

That's because as lawmakers gear up to pass legislation to reduce the gases blamed for global warming and clean up the nation's energy sources, they have yet to succeed in their own backyard.

"We are holding it up as a symbol for how we can and must do better," said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, one of 40 environmental groups organizing the protest to call on Congress to pass a bill to curb greenhouse gases. Among those expected to attend are NASA scientist James Hansen, who first testified before Congress about the perils of global warming in 1988.

Hansen has called for a halt on building any new coal-fired power plants without technology to capture and store carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas and the chief one at the Capitol Power Plant.

In 2007, the facility released 118,851 tons of carbon dioxide, according to the Energy Department _ a fraction of what the nation's 600 coal-fired power plants produce.

But despite repeated attempts by Congress to clean it up _ including provisions in two 2007 laws _ the plant still burns coal and accounts for a third of the legislative branch's greenhouse gas emissions.

Efforts to make the plant run more efficiently, reduce energy consumption and use more cleaner-burning natural gas have succeeded in recent years.

But Congress is running out of options to make it fully green. On Friday the House announced that it was abandoning its goal to be carbon neutral and would no longer buy offsets to make sure it was removing as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it releases. Those offsets were key to zeroing out emissions at the plant that could not be reduced by other means.

There are also questions as to whether Congress can afford to pay for more natural gas.

The story of the Capitol Power Plant is one likely to play out across the country as Congress looks to limit greenhouse gases and require more energy to come from wind, solar and other renewable sources...."