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General Information on CO2 Source Data Available Through NATCARB

Partners can use our download page to access data files. A password is required to access that page. Please contact Tim Carr, project admininstrator, if you need a password to access data.

Summary

As part of the effort to create a more seamless national database for carbon sequestration, the NATCARB group at the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) has linked to the EPA and EGRID databases, made extracts of data that we believe contain the most useful data for identifying large CO2 sources and provided two data tables (plus look up tables). Data can be downloaded with a couple of simple clicks. The data are in the same structure that was developed for the MIDCARB project. The EPA updates their CAMD (Clean Air Markets Division) data annually and their eGRID data quarterly. KGS will obtain the updates and will notify the partnerships when new data are available.

All data are provided through the NATCARB Data Download Page and are downloadable by region. When a region is selected, a ZIP file of the data is created.

Please send any questions, comments and problems to the KGS Data Manager (mcm@ku.edu).

Background

EPA Data--The EPA Clean Air Markets Division (CAMD) provides data on major emissions sources for various market-based regulatory programs designed to improve air quality. On the EPA web site, in the Data and Maps section, you can submit a query that will give you some of the same data, but NATCARB has obtained access to all of the raw data in normalized tables. The EPA tables pertinent to this project are available through the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) NATCARB Oracle database in the Oracle user NATCARB_EPA. The document "CAMD Data Tables from the EPA" (743k Word Doc) is the EPA documentation about their data tables. If you want direct access to these tables of raw, unprocessed EPA data, please contact the KGS Data Manager (mcm@ku.edu).

EGRID--eGRID is another database from the EPA that provides information on the air quality attributes of almost all the electric power generated in the United States. We have downloaded the eGRID raw data from http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/egrid/index.html. The eGRID data are stored in spreadsheets from which we selected the relevant data and stored it in the KGS NATCARB Oracle database, user NATCARB_EGRID.

NATCARB Data Tables--We have created a simplified version of the source emissions data following the format used in the MIDCARB project (www.midcarb.org). There are just two tables, plus look-up tables. The facility table contains the header information and the emissions table contains the emissions data. So for both data sources, we created a facility table and an emissions table in our simplified format:
NATCARB.EPA_FACILITIES
NATCARB.EPA_FACILITIES_EMISSIONS
NATCARB.EGRID_FACILITIES
NATCARB.EGRID_FACILITIES_EMISSIONS

We created tables for Kansas and the states that are not included in partnership regions. This is where we store our corrected lat-long values as well as data on additional facilities, like ethanol plants, that do not report their emissions to the EPA. As a final step, we wrote programs to integrate the data into tables for the whole country.
NATCARB.KS_FACILITIES
NATCARB.KS_FACILITIES_EMISSIONS
NATCARB.OTHER_FACILITIES
NATCARB.OTHER_FACILITIES_EMISSIONS
NATCARB.USA_FACILITIES
NATCARB.USA_FACILITIES_EMISSIONS

There are three look-up tables:
NATCARB.STATES
NATCARB.REGIONS
NATCARB.FUEL_TYPE_COMBUSTED

The USA tables and the lookup tables can be downloaded by region using the NATCARB Data Download Page. The descriptions of these tables are in the document "Descriptions of NATCARB USA Data Tables.doc" (24k Word Doc).

Helpful Hints

For people who download these tables, here are some helpful details:

Primary keys: The ORIS_CODE (a.k.a. ORISPL) is a nationally unique 6 digit ID assigned by DOE at the Energy Information Administration (EIA). We are using it as our primary key. Within a facility, the units are identified by the UNITID, but these are unique only within the facility. The UNIT_ID, however, is a nationally unique unit identifier. The EPA table named FACILITY_INVENTORY maps these relationships. For example:

NATCARB.USA_FACILITIES: This table contains the static information like location and the POWER_CAPACITY_MW, which is the name plate capacity of the facility and it comes from the eGRID data.

NATCARB.USA_FACILITIES_EMISSIONS: This table contains the emission data by month for each unit of each facility. The eGRID data are only available as one value per year, so those rows of data have MONTH=0.

From the EPA documentation...

CO2 Tons: To determine hourly CO2 emissions, owners and operators may use either (1) a mass balance estimation; (2) CO2 CEMs; or (3) O2 CEMs to estimate CO2 emissions. If a utility chooses to use a CEM system, a CO2 or oxygen monitor plus a volumetric stack flow monitor would be used to compute emissions in tons per hour. The tons of CO2 would then be calculated, based on the emissions per hour and the operating time for the hour. Note: CO2 tons are 2000 lb tons.

SO2 Tons: For the Acid Rain Program, owners or operators of affected sources measure the rate at which SO2 is released and then calculate the total amount of SO2 released in tons, based on the emission rate per hour and operating hours. For coal-fired units, SO2 emissions are measured using a continuous emissions monitoring (CEM) system. To do this, an owner or operator must install and operate both an SO2 pollutant concentration monitor and a volumetric flow monitor. Using stack flow rate and concentration, a mass emission rate in pounds per hour is calculated for each hour of unit operation. For units burning natural gas, owners or operators may determine SO2 mass emissions by: (1) measuring heat input with a gas flow meter and using a default emission rate; or (2) sampling and analyzing gas daily for sulfur and using the volume of gas combusted; or (3) using CEMs. For units burning oil, owners or operators may monitor SO2 mass emissions by one of the following methods: (1) daily manual oil sampling and analysis plus oil flow meter (to continuously monitor oil usage); (2) sampling and analysis of diesel fuel oil as-delivered plus oil flow meter; (3) automatic continuous oil sampling plus oil flow meter; (4) SO2 and flow CEMs.

NOx Tons: Facilities may calculate the tons of NOx emitted, by measuring (or estimating) NOx emissions as pounds per mmBtu and then calculating an annual total, based on heat input (mmBtu). For gas or oil-fired peaking units owners or operators may either estimate NOx emissions by using site-specific emission correlations and periodic stack testing to verify continued representativeness of the correlations or use NOx CEMS.

Heat input (mmBtu) is a measure of utilization and can be calculated by multiplying the quantity of fuel by the fuel's heat content. The unit of measure is usually MMBtu (million British thermal units). For coal fired units and some oil and gas fired units, heat input is calculated using a CO2 or O2 continuous emission monitor and a volumetric stack flow monitor. For oil and gas units using Appendix D procedures**, heat input is the product of the gross calorific value (gcv) of the fuel (expressed in Btu/lb) and the fuel feed rate into the combustion device (expressed in mass of fuel/time). Heat input does not include the heat derived from preheated combustion air, recirculated flue gases, or exhaust from other sources. [**Note: The document that this text was taken from did not contain an Appendix D.]

Other Information

CO2_CONCENTRATION is determined by the fuel type combusted. The EPA has measured concentrations for CO2, SO2 and NOX, but they are stored in a SAS dataset on a mainframe, not in an accessible database.

FUEL_TYPE_COMBUSTED is a code that can be looked up in the table described below.

Look-up tables:

STATES contains the API state code, the state name, the postal abbreviation and the region it was assigned to for the NATCARB project.

REGIONS lists the 7 regions for the NATCARB project and their names.

FUEL_TYPE_COMBUSTED: Because the EPA and the eGRID data use different codes for the same thing, we created a look-up table, along with some descriptions of the codes. CO2_CONCENTRATION is determined by the fuel type combusted. Those values are in both this table and in the emissions table (denormalized for convenience). The EPA does have measured concentrations for CO2, SO2 and NOX, but they are stored in a SAS dataset on a mainframe, not in an accessible database.

EGRID data: The 2002 version (2.01) is the current version and it has data through 2000 and was made available on May 9, 2003.

May 16, 2005

NATCARB USA Table Descriptions (as 28k Word Doc)

CAMD Data Tables from the EPA (1.7 MB Word Doc)

Feb. 2, 2003

First Teleconference PPT file (as 396k PDF)