I said that it is very unlikely that you could cause dirty operations to cease because you bought all the possible credits.

Finite or infinite supply does not set the price.  The price is set by what one party is willing to pay and another party is willing to accept.

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Tim DeChristopher was sent to prison (for ten years) because he bid on a permit without having the money on hand to purchase the permit.

He disrupted an auction.  Hideous crime, wasn’t it?  Should have strung him up right there.

People who are convicted of stock manipulation typically get one to three year sentences.

The permits are issued by European governments. There isn’t an indefinite supply of them, or the price would have gone to zero already.

The price of carbon in the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) should be trading at three times today’s levels according to new analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance of the long-term fundamentals in the emissions market. Looking at how the scheme will evolve up to 2020 and beyond, the price today should be €40 – 60/tCO2, compared to the [then-]current price of around €12 – 13/tCO2. By 2020 prices will need to rise to €60 to €90/tCO2.
Since the beginning of 2011 the European carbon price has traded between €10 and €19/tCO2. These low prices reflect oversupply caused by the accumulated surpluses of Phase II (2008-2012) largely created by the recession, as well as an increase in the volume of carbon credits imported from outside the EU.

http://www.bnef.com/PressReleases/view/165

Carbon prices have shed more than half their value since June, as the euro zone’s worsening debt crisis choked demand for emissions permits.
The EU carbon market is also oversupplied with hundreds of millions of permits, and some analysts don’t expect demand to outpace supply until 2020.
…
Last week, UBS said the carbon price could bottom close to 3 euros, but other analysts said there is no real floor, especially if the EU enters another recession.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/24/us-carbon-price-record-low-idUSTRE7AN0UJ20111124

It’s an interesting question. My guess would be ‘no’.

It’s the polluter trying to buy a “pass” from someone who can demonstrate that they can offset the polluter’s pollution.

To control the supply market you’d have to buy up all the supply. You would, for example, have to buy up/fund every potential reforestation project in the world. I suspect it would be too expensive to corner the supply market.

Especially since the remaining sellers would start jacking up prices as supplies tightened.