Articles | Volume 20, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-99-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-99-2020
Research article
 | 
03 Jan 2020
Research article |  | 03 Jan 2020

A methodology to constrain carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants using satellite observations of co-emitted nitrogen dioxide

Fei Liu, Bryan N. Duncan, Nickolay A. Krotkov, Lok N. Lamsal, Steffen Beirle, Debora Griffin, Chris A. McLinden, Daniel L. Goldberg, and Zifeng Lu

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Cited articles

Ackerman, K. V. and Sundquist, E. T.: Comparison of two U.S. power-plant carbon dioxide emissions data sets, Environ. Sci. Technol., 42, 5688–5693, https://doi.org/10.1021/es800221q, 2008. 
Basu, S., Guerlet, S., Butz, A., Houweling, S., Hasekamp, O., Aben, I., Krummel, P., Steele, P., Langenfelds, R., Torn, M., Biraud, S., Stephens, B., Andrews, A., and Worthy, D.: Global CO2 fluxes estimated from GOSAT retrievals of total column CO2, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 8695–8717, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-8695-2013, 2013. 
Beirle, S., Boersma, K. F., Platt, U., Lawrence, M. G., and Wagner, T.: Megacity emissions and lifetimes of nitrogen oxides probed from space, Science, 333, 1737–1739, 2011. 
Berezin, E. V., Konovalov, I. B., Ciais, P., Richter, A., Tao, S., Janssens-Maenhout, G., Beekmann, M., and Schulze, E.-D.: Multiannual changes of CO2 emissions in China: indirect estimates derived from satellite measurements of tropospheric NO2 columns, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 9415–9438, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-9415-2013, 2013. 
Boersma, K. F., Eskes, H. J., Veefkind, J. P., Brinksma, E. J., van der A, R. J., Sneep, M., van den Oord, G. H. J., Levelt, P. F., Stammes, P., Gleason, J. F., and Bucsela, E. J.: Near-real time retrieval of tropospheric NO2 from OMI, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 2103–2118, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-7-2103-2007, 2007. 
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Short summary
We present a novel method to infer CO2 emissions from individual power plants, based on satellite observations of co-emitted NO2. We find that the CO2 emissions estimated by our satellite-based method during 2005–2017 are in reasonable agreement with the CEMS measurements for US power plants. The broader implication of our methodology is that it has the potential to provide an additional constraint on CO2 emissions from power plants in regions of the world without reliable emissions accounting.
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