This is a very poor substitute for trees. Trees convert gaseous carbon dioxide into solid organic molecules [1].

I am pretty suspicious of the idea that humans (especially the humans who come up with the lowest bids to win these contracts) can store planetary-scale amounts of carbon dioxide over geologic time.

This may very well accomplish nothing.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixation

I'd personally much rather see the source of the problem fixed (reduce carbon emissions). I also hope this doesn't turn into an excuse to clear-cut more rain forests.

i.e. We'll cut down the real trees and replace them with efficient carbon collecting "tree" buildings.

I think that for the most part, it is expected that some sort of geo-engineering (call it what you like) will take place.

It would be very interesting if one of these technologies eventually made carbon capture so cheap that multiple countries could single-handedly afford to reduce carbon levels to whatever they wanted.

At that point carbon levels become an active decision. The words environmental policy would take on a completely different meaning.

"Each synthetic tree would cost $30,000 dollars to build."

I bet you could buy a whole acre of forest for that. Best part is, you don't have to perform maintenance or anything on an acre of forest.

At the same time, they're 1000 times faster. Can a tree be planted for $30?

Last time I checked, yes.

http://www.arborday.org/Shopping/Trees/PopularTrees.cfm?zone...

Around $6 a tree, and lets say the remaining $24 goes to some middle school kid to plant it for you.

20 cars? That goes to 1000-2000 per car, which is by far the cheapest way I've heard of to make cars carbon neutral.

So if you plant a lot of these around real trees will they suffocate? Will someone think of the trees?!?!