Captain Mercaptan to the rescue! This story is hilarious on many levels. We’re not making fun, well, maybe just a little. Do you know what mercaptan is? Natural gas (methane) as it comes out of the ground is colorless and oderless. If you breathe too much of it, you’ll die (suffocate) because it will cut out the oxygen you’re breathing. So natural gas utility companies, like Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE), add a chemical called mercaptan to the gas that gives it that foul, disgusting, rotten eggs smell. Ask someone who lives close to a compressor station where mercaptan is present (and leaking) and they’ll tell you just how hideous the smell can get. So BGE teamed up with Marvel Comics, of Avengers fame, to introduce a new comic book hero: Captain Mercaptan (Mercaptan Mercaptain…echo for effect). Captain Mercaptan teaches little crumb crunchers to skedaddle when they smell him. Call 911. Tell an adult. Get out of the room. A life sized Captain Mercaptan (sans the smell) visited the fifth grade class at Hampden Elementary-Middle School in Baltimore yesterday…
