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Matthias Knab, Opalesque:

Concerns are mounting over the amount of methane gas that is being produced on Capitol Hill.

In November 1776, methane was first scientifically identified by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta in the marshes of Lake Maggiore straddling Italy and Switzerland. Volta was inspired to search for the substance after reading a paper written by Benjamin Franklin about "flammable air" in Washington. Volta captured the gas rising from the marsh, and by 1778 had isolated the pure gas. He also demonstrated means to ignite the gas with an electric spark.

Everyone knows D.C. was built from a "pestilent swamp," President Jimmy Carter said so. So the original sources of the gas was from the actual swamp itself.

Methane production in the area has increased to such an extent that the Capitol Dome is holding dangerous concentrations of the gas. This gas could be ignited by a single spark which would blow the dome off leaving the Capitol building to look like a decapitated egg.

An idea has been put forward to drill holes in the top of the dome which would let the gas escape into the atmosphere. But this would make the Capitol building look like a salt cellar. Environmentalists are however against the idea as methane gas is one of the gases creating the global greenhouse effect and it would be dangerous to release more into the atmosphere.

Dr A R Shole, Chairman of Taurus Orators, the radical hedge fund group and leaders of socially responsible in......................

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