Nice Wired interview with an entrepreneur who plans on sequencing the genome of all organisms in the ocean:
The goal is to engineer a new species of microorganism from scratch — to improve metabolic function by orders of magnitude so that we can make biological CO² scrubbers for power plants. The organism's genetic structure would allow it to exist only in a specialized environment, so if it ever got outside, it would immediately die.
Based on the metabolic rates of existing microorganisms, you'd probably need something the size of an ocean. But if we can boost metabolic processes 1,000-fold, we can reduce carbon volumes 1,000-fold. Many biological processes have been sped up 10,000-fold or greater. I think it has to get down to a swimming pool-sized environment for a power plant, or a reactor that size
