Milestone reached! 100 editions published
How was it for you?
Well here we are - welcome to the 100th issue of The Northern Eco!
Congratulations to those of you who’ve stayed the course from day one (Aug 1, 2023) and massive special thanks to the amazing group of you who have been paying to keep this running!
We started out by covering the freshly formed Save Our Swale group and the issue of river pollution has been a constant thread over the weeks and months. Fitting then that last week’s edition was all about the formation of a national Sewage Campaign Network.
But it’s not the only topic we’ve covered here - green energy, what’s on eco events, people campaigning for a right to grow and businesses looking after the environment have all featured along with many more topics - what have you enjoyed the most?
Reaching this milestone seems like a good time to take stock - what’s worked, what’s not working and where do we go from here? That’s why you’ll find a five question survey in your inboxes this morning - I need to hear from you in order to plan for the future. It will help me serve you with the journalism you want.
Now the difficult conversation - it’s the money, honey
My former Guardian colleague Micheal McLeod took a brave decision when he started out on the same Substack platform we use which he called “building in public.” He’s published his numbers over at the excellent Edinburgh Minute on a regular basis.
I’ve always admired that approach and this seems the right time to share some numbers with all of you. But first, please understand, I never expected to get rich doing this - I passionately believe in protecting the environment and taking action on climate change and that is still my primary motivation.
Here’s the situation:
There’s been 100 full newsletters sent to people’s emails.
There’s been an additional 16 reports on the website.
That makes 116 in total over the past 13 months i.e. an average of nine articles per month.
From those of you who decided to pay, we’re on track to achieve $784 revenue.
Using a calculation based on an average UK wage, each newsletter costs £114 to produce.
Ok, you’ll be ahead of me now, but that means it’s cost £11,400 to produce and brought in £590.
Don’t get me wrong, money isn’t the be all and end all - there’s many intangible positive benefits I receive from doing this - not least meeting the wonderful people who feature in the stories! However, revenue does matter to make this sustainable. I’ve big ambitions for this fledgling news business. I’d love to be able to grow The Northern Eco and pay it forward by taking on apprentices from Darlington College (like contributor Adele) for example as well as create a budget to commission more journalists. But, as you can see, I’ll need some help to get anywhere near that dream.
Your support means more than keeping The Northern Eco; it’s supporting access to local news more widely and gives a platform to the many local causes organising events too.
Can you help?
There’s a few different ways you can help. The most direct is to become a paid subscriber and to mark the 100 editions, I’ve discounted it by 20% for the next few days.
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THANK YOU! Now onto the news……
Carbon capture is coming! What’s the problem?
The big eco news in the past week was the government pledging £22bn for a carbon capture initiative for greener energy and much needed jobs for part of our hardest hit region. The announcement was generally treated as an example of a win-win situation for the environment and for the people of of Teesside - so why are so many environmentalists and scientists speaking out against the plans? It seems like an opportunity to look more deeply at the topic.
What is carbon capture?
The National Grid describes carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which could be key to helping to tackle global warming.
“It’s a three-step process, involving: capturing the CO2 produced by power generation or industrial activity, such as hydrogen production, steel or cement making; transporting it; and then permanently storing it deep underground.”
Where else is it used?
According to the Global CCS Institute’s 2022 report, there were 194 large-scale CCS facilities globally at the end of that year – compared to 51 in 2019 – 61 of which were new CCS facilities added to the project pipeline. 30 of these projects were in operation, 11 under construction and the remainder in various stages of development.
Of the total number of projects by 2022, 94 were in the Americas (80 in the U.S.), 73 in Europe (27 in the UK), 21 in Asia-Pacific and 6 in the Middle East.
The CO2 capture capacity of all CCS facilities under development grew to 244 million tonnes per annum in 2022.
Seeing those huge numbers makes it sound like this is a mighty solution BUT, to put this into context, by 2020 the amount of captured carbon represented just 0.12% of the world’s CO2.
What’s the argument against the plan?
Economic and political: Some politicians are attempting to make the green transition itself a so-called “wedge” or “culture war” issue and so will use the carbon capture announcement to present an argument against the net zero targets. Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch even announced from the conference stage last week that she’s a “net zero denier”. Others point to the huge amount of money involved and would prefer it was spent elsewhere. The Green party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay urged the government to use the budget on insulating homes saying:
“This announcement is no substitute for the urgent and immediate investment needed in home and business insulation to cut energy use and the increased renewables funding that is badly needed to meet future energy needs.”
Unproven technology: Some CCS projects in other countries have been abandoned due to problems with implementation and soaring costs. As a recent example, in Canada, in May this year, a project which aimed to capture and sequester up to 3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions was cancelled. Environmentalists there were scornful of the project saying:
“This decision is just the latest failure in carbon capture’s terrible track record. It should serve as a lesson for governments on how reckless it is to be using taxpayer dollars to subsidize these projects.”
Bad science: Several of the UK’s leading climate scientists recently signed a letter to the energy security and net zero secretary, Ed Miliband, which pointed out the many issues with the current plans.
One of those was Mark Maslin Professor of Natural Sciences at UCL who spells out at The Conversation that the project will mean the UK remains reliant on the oil and gas industry:
“In the letter, we pointed out that carbon capture projects have a very poor track record of overpromising and underdelivering. Most current CCS capacity is within natural gas processing facilities, where CO₂ must be separated out to produce marketable products. Almost 80% of the CO₂ captured is reinjected into oil fields to facilitate oil extraction.”
Further reading: Will carbon capture help the UK tackle climate change? from BBC Climate and science.
Having heard the arguments, wdyt? I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.
If you’re interested to learn more about carbon and the climate, we’ll be opening up slots on our interactive carbon training workshops later this month. Find out more here.
The three most clicked links from last week were:
A Gap: Reflections on the deliberate felling of ‘The Robin Hood Tree’ at Sycamore Gap in Northumberland
Investigations into deaths of native species in Northumberland
This week’s clean river news
💦 The Stop Ure Pollution (SUP) group reported the results of the first water sampling at a well-attended public meeting in Leyburn last week. My report on that here.
💦 Watch out for a big announcement from OFWAT today - the regulator is expected to report on the water companies’ performance and potential customer refunds once the markets open this morning.
💦 Atlantic salmon stocks in England have reached new lows according to a new report.
In other news
🪶 Five species have been added to the Red list of highest conservation concern, after a review of the status of the UK’s breeding seabird populations, reports The Ambler.
🪶 A project to reintroduce black grouse to the North York Moors after nearly 200 years has begun, writes Grace Wood at the BBC.
🧑🌾 Addressing the audience at the NFU’s fringe panel event during the Labour party conference, the NFU president warned that “farmers are carrying too much of the burden of risk” and many will be asking the question ‘will I be able to plant next year’s crop?’. Jackie Craft at the D&S reports.
🦔 A hedgehog rescue centre based in Nidderdale will be celebrating a significant milestone this November – 10 years of rehabilitating and releasing hundreds of the creatures across the region. The Stray Ferret interviews the couple running the rescue.
“It’s an article of faith in Sheffield that we live in the greenest city in Europe. The city, we are often told, has 4.5 million trees, around eight for every human being fortunate enough to live here. Some of this, whisper it, might actually stem from the fact that around a third of Sheffield lies within the Peak District. We are, after all, the only major city which contains a national park within its city boundary. But that is only part of the story. Sheffield’s urban areas are unusually green compared with other cities.” 🌳 A lovely long read from Dan Hayes in The Tribune.
💩 A French power company has launched a consultation on creating a farm waste plant near York which aims to power 5,200 homes. Darren Greenwood at York Press has more.
🛢️Kate Bramifitt, 52, from Hexham, Ben Plumpton, 70, and Naomi Goddard, 60, both from Hebden Bridge, Gregory Sculthorpe, 38, of Doncaster, were found guilty after a trial at Stratford Magistrates’ Court of wilfully obstructing a highway. Helen William at The Northern Echo reports.
🌿 Helena Horton at The Guardian writes that the amount of land that is protected for nature in England has fallen to just 2.93%, despite government promises to conserve 30% of it by 2030, new data reveals.
Thanks for reading, I’ll be chewing over your survey results and will report back.
I shall be at the Public Interest News Foundation’s forum in Glasgow on Friday, if you’re attending, please do say Hi, or follow on X @thenortherneco.
Have a great week!
🌼 Thank you for reading edition number 100 of The Northern Eco. This newsletter remains independent, free unless you want to pay, ad-free and proudly reader supported thanks to paying subscribers. The main newsletter is sent out at 7am on a Tuesday and can’t exist without paying subscribers. Please do subscribe to keep it going - I can’t do it without your support. Thanks!