Editor’s Note: As part of the Coalblog’s continuing commitment to bringing you new and innovative editorial and ideas, I have invited Walter James O’Brien to expand on his recent American Coal magazine article, “Carbon Compliance Using the Carnegie Model.” In this short update, O’Brien considers how the coal industry can use CO2 to promote industrial development. Please feel free to comment and suggest other means of making CO2 pay.

Scientists at Industrial Technologies describe how they are building “industrial blood” as a means of capturing CO₂ from flue gas. They are developing a system that mimics the ability of blood to remove CO₂ from the body using carbolic anhydrase to create bicarbonate ions, which are then released from the lungs using a reaction (involving zinc, amino acids, and hydroxyl ion).

This May 7 Globe and Mail article gives an indication of some of the difficulties that international carbon trading schemes could impose on individual countries. If rules imposed and monitored by the U.N. are not followed, or carbon reporting mechanisms are deemed insufficient by the U.N.’s “enforcement branch,” a country’s right to trade carbon credits internationally could be restricted or suspended.

Canada will be probed on suspicion of violating rules for
registering greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a UN-led fight
against global warming, official documents show.