Quantifying CO2 Emissions From Individual Power Plants From Space

In order to better manage anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, improved methods of quantifying emissions are needed at all spatial scales from the national level down to the facility level. Although the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) satellite was not designed for monitoring power plant emissions, we show that in some cases, CO₂ observations from OCO-2 can be used to quantify daily CO₂ emissions from individual middle- to large-sized coal power plants by fitting the data to plume model simulations. Emission estimates for U.S. power plants are within 1-17% of reported daily emission values, enabling application of the approach to international sites that lack detailed emission information. This affirms that a constellation of future CO₂ imaging satellites, optimized for point sources, could monitor emissions from individual power plants to support the implementation of climate policies.