Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture and storage (CCS) is a key climate mitigation technology that can global CO 2 emissions by thousands of megatonnes of CO 2 annually. CCS is almost certainly required, along with a wide portfolio of other technologies in an “all of the above” strategy, to achieve the reductions in global CO 2 emissions necessary to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of CO 2 . Despite many high-profile demonstration projects, commercial-scale CCS deployment is still impeded by multiple issues including economic viability, public awareness and acceptance, and regulation and permitting. Developing a large-scale, highly visible and economically feasible CCS network—in addition to existing investment approaches— will be required to overcome these barriers to widespread CCS adoption. We propose a pathway to an integrated CCS network that connects multiple industrial CO 2 sources and geologic storage reservoirs using existing CCS technologies. Specifically, we propose that such a network could utilize CO 2 emissions from ethylene manufacturing for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, creating a regional ethylene:CO 2 -EOR network. The ethylene market presents several key advantages for capturing CO 2 : ethylene is a high-value chemical with a price that can readily absorb capture costs (unlike fossil fuel electricity generation), ethylene sources are both closely clustered and emit a large volume of CO 2 , and existing capture technology is cost-competitive when coupled with nearby EOR reservoirs. Our analysis describes the techno-economic potential of CO 2 capture and EOR, the potential policy implications, and how the ethylene industry could be an ideal first-mover for jumpstarting commercial-scale CCS operations. As part of this analysis we identify the costs and CO 2 flows for ethylene production and EOR across the Gulf Coast region. We introduce the concepts of “byproduct CO 2” (CO 2 as a byproduct or waste stream from an existing industry such as power generation) and “extracted CO 2” (naturally-occurring CO 2 extracted from subsurface reservoirs for EOR); extracted CO 2 cannot decrease the carbon footprint of oil production, unlike byproduct CO 2 . We also suggest ethylene:CO 2 -EOR as a blueprint for other regional-scale byproduct CO 2 -EOR projects such as the Alberta oil sands, Marcellus and other U.S. shale fields, and large-scale coal-to-liquid and coal-to-chemical operations in China.