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.