Monitoring and quantifying CO₂ emissions of isolated power plants from space

Abstract

Top-down CO2 emission estimates based on satellite observations are of great importance for independently verifying the accuracy of reported emissions and emission inventories. Difficulties in verifying these satellite-derived emissions arise from the fact that emission inventories often provide annual mean emissions, while estimates from satellites are available only for a limited number of overpasses. Previous studies have derived CO2 emissions for power plants from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 and 3 (OCO-2 and OCO-3) satellite observations of their exhaust plumes, but the accuracy and the factors affecting these emissions are uncertain. Here we advance monitoring and quantifying point source carbon emissions by focusing on how to improve the accuracy of carbon emission using different wind data estimates. We have selected only isolated power plants for this study, to avoid complications linked to multiple sources in close proximity. We first compared the Gaussian plume model and cross-sectional flux methods for estimating CO2 emission of power plants. Then we examined the sensitivity of the emission estimates to possible choices for the wind field. For verification we have used power plant emissions that are reported on an hourly basis by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US. By using the OCO-2 and OCO-3 observations over the past 4 years we identified emission signals of isolated power plants and arrived at a total of 50 collocated cases involving 22 power plants. We correct for the time difference between the moment of the emission and the satellite observation. We found the wind field halfway the height of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) yielded the best results. We also found that the instantaneous satellite estimated emissions of these 50 cases, and reported emissions display a weak correlation (R2=0.12). The correlation improves with averaging over multiple observations of the 22 power plants (R2=0.40). The method was subsequently applied to 106 power plant cases worldwide and yielded a total emission of 1522 ± 501 Mt CO2 yr−1, estimated to be about 17 % of the power sector emissions of our selected countries. The improved correlation highlights the potential for future planned satellite missions with a greatly improved coverage to monitor a significant fraction of global power plant emissions.