Lots of people have been working on carbon sequestration using accelerated natural processes for quite a while. It's not a simple nor cheap problem.

E.g. from 2000 - http://dge.stanford....Caldeira_Rau.html

Abstract

Various methods have been proposed for mitigating release of anthropogenic CO2 to the atmosphere, including deep-sea injection of CO2 captured from fossil-fuel fired power plants. Here, we use a schematic model of ocean chemistry and transport to analyze the geochemical consequences of a new method for separating carbon dioxide from a waste gas stream and sequestering it in the ocean. This method involves reacting CO2-rich power-plant gases with seawater to produce a carbonic acid solution which in turn is reacted on site with carbonate mineral (e.g., limestone) to form Ca2+ and bicarbonate in solution, which can then be released and diluted in the ocean. Such a process is similar to carbonate weathering and dissolution which would have otherwise occurred naturally, but over many millennia. Relative to atmospheric release or direct CO2 injection, this method would greatly expand the capacity of the ocean to store anthropogenic carbon while minimizing environmental impacts of this carbon on ocean biota. This carbonate-dissolution technique may be more cost-effective and less environmentally harmful than previously proposed CO2 capture and sequestration techniques.

(Emphasis added.)

It takes a lot of energy input to make it efficient. E.g. presumably the limestone would have to be trucked in, crushed to suitable dust; the power plant exhaust would have to be filtered to separate toxic things other than CO2 to control the pH, etc., etc.

On the Space Station, they have a nearly unlimited budget by comparison. About the only constraint is mass - mass is very expensive. But if some gizmo that filters/captures/transforms CO2 is very light costs a lot and needs a lot of power, that's not a big deal. One of the gizmo on the space station is the ISS CDRA - http://en.wikipedia....talisation_system . Photos are here - http://onorbit.com/node/1945 - it's not simple. It's had problems over the years.

Cheers,
Scott.

I'm just saying that scrubbers aren't cheap, and (trying to get back on topic), the solution to high oil prices isn't drilling more. We've been round and round on that, but to recap:

1) It can take years for new wells to start producing and for that new oil to get to market. Issuing new deep water permits isn't going to do anything about gas prices in the next year or more.

2) US oil reserves are tiny. 22.3 Bbbl at the end of 2009 - http://www.eia.gov/o..._reserves/cr.html KSA claims 267 Bbbl - http://en.wikipedia....s_in_Saudi_Arabia

At 18.8 Mbbl/day, if the US only consumed its own oil, and all the reserves are produced, it would be gone in 1187 days - a little over 3 years.

Shale oil and the like aren't a near-term solution - it's dirty (and more expensive to refine), requires a lot of water - and the water and the shale are often in different places, etc. That's going to be expensive, too.

3) Oil is a global commodity. Producing more here isn't going to matter to prices if world consumption grabs that increment and more. See #2.

4) We know that the cheap oil is running out. Prices are going to rise over the long term no matter what we do.

Things can be done in the short term to punish the speculators, but the long term trend is up. We need to get off the treadmill.

The solution isn't to "drill baby drill" and spend billions on scrubbers in order to keep driving larger and larger cars and trucks, it's to do things more efficiently so that we don't need to consume so much in the first place, and to invest in ways of producing power (and portable power) that doesn't require burning stuff.

I'm not a Luddite. I simply think that assuming our future is some larger version of 1950s America is stupid. Remember this? From National Lampoon in 1972 - http://pics.livejour...mes/pic/0049dtgz/ Looks like it's about 15' wide... ;-) Another is here - http://dr-hermes.liv...l.com/480553.html

YMMV.

[edit:] crazy needs a Bossmobile. http://www.flickr.co...3/in/photostream/ Be sure to catch Bruce's TED talk too - http://www.ted.com/t...ux_nostalgia.html (12:57)

Cheers,
Scott.