map of all 286 us coal power plants

Quantifying Coal-Based Power Plant Emissions with OCO–2: An Analysis of Quantifying Carbon Emission Sources from U.S. Coal-Based Power Plants

Benedicta Asiedu, Eduardo Marin, and Kellen Moore

Abstract 

Coal-fired power plants contribute heavily to global anthropogenic carbon emissions, responsible for over 40% of fossil fuel-related emissions worldwide (Nassar et al., 2017; Yuan et al., 2025). However, there are multiple challenges that face data collection of carbon dioxide. The largest issues tend to be limited spatial and temporal resolution, delayed reporting, and reliance on self-reported fuel data. These metrics often misrepresent actual emissions, particularly in regions with poor monitoring infrastructure (Guo et al., 2023; Hu & Shi, 2021). The study Quantifying Coal-Based Power Plant Emissions with OCO–2 investigates the potential of leveraging Orbiting Carbon Observatory–2 (OCO–2) satellite data to detect carbon dioxide emissions from individual coal-fired power plants. Rather than relying on dispersion models, such as the Wenye et al. study (2023) covering carbon emission detection in China, we conduct a comparative analysis of the top 30 and lowest 30 emitting coal-based power plants. Through performing various visualizations and a regression model, we determine whether column carbon dioxide concentrations observed by OCO–2 can be attributed to these coal-based power plants. There will be two research questions pursued: first, can you measure direct carbon emissions from coal-based power plants across the United States through OCO–2 data? If so, is there a correlation between capacity of production and carbon emission? The findings from the study will hopefully inform the usability of these data sources to track power plant emissions globally.

data acquisition table

Table 1. The table highlights Daily CO2 emission levels

table of us coal based power plants

Table 2. The table highlights the top five and bottom five surveyed for the line graph figure.

map of all 286 us coal power plants

Figure 1. Map of nearly all of the United States coal-based power plants color-coded by production capacity which is measured in MWh.

map of top and bottom 30 us coal power plants by capacity

Figure 2. Map of the top and bottom thirty United States coal-based power plants by production capacity.

top and bottom five powerplants defined by capacity to produce coal energy

Figure 3. Line graph of measured carbon dioxide per parts per million on every Summer and Winter Solstice from 2015 to 2021. The data compares these trends between the top five production capacity and bottom five production capacity.

line graph of mean carbon dioxide parts per million and production capacity

Figure 4. Linear regression of mean carbon dioxide emissions and production of energy capacity of the top 30 and bottom 30 power plants in the United States.

summary of regression model

Figure 5. Summary of the regression model