Abstract
In the carbon capture and storage (CCS) process, CO2 sources and geologic reservoirs may be
spatially dispersed and need to be connected through a CO2 pipeline network. The full potential of CCS to
mitigate CO2 will only be realized through comprehensive planning of CCS infrastructure. We introduce a
scalable infrastructure model for CCS (simCCS), the first model to generate an integrated, cost-minimizing
CCS system. SimCCS determines where and how much CO2 to capture and store, and where to build and
connect pipelines of different sizes, by minimizing the total cost of sequestering a given amount of CO2.
SimCCS can aggregate CO2 flows between several sources and reservoirs into trunk pipelines�the costs
and routing of which incorporate several social and physical factors�that take advantage of economies of
scale. SimCCS' deployment of a realistic, capacitated pipeline network is a major advancement for planning
CCS infrastructure. We demonstrate simCCS using a set of 37 CO2 sources and 14 reservoirs for the state
of California. The results highlight the importance of systematic planning for CCS infrastructure by
examining the sensitivity of CCS infrastructure, as optimized by simCCS, to varying CO2 targets. We finish
by identifying future research areas for CCS infrastructure.