Connor Cantrell | 4/23/2025
New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) passed in 2019 and mandates specific goals for the State’s reduction of greenhouse gasses and on what timeline the reductions need to happen.
According to the CLCPA, New York needs to reduce emissions to 40% below the 1990 level of emissions by 2030, reach 70% renewable generation on the grid by 2030, and a number of other quantifiable goals that can be checked here on New York’s climate act dashboard.
Here’s where we are as of April 2026 according to the dashboard:
Source: https://climate.ny.gov/dashboard
As we can see, some of these goals are closer to being achieved than others and, for the most part, New York is doing the work to transition away from fossil fuels.
Here’s the data on solar in New York in terms of generating capacity:
Drawbacks of Current Status Quo
In 2024, 55% of New York’s electricity was generated by natural gas, which was up from 51% in 2014. Over the same time period, the State grew solar generation from 0.12% to 6.07% of the energy mix, wind grew from 4% to 6.5%, and coal went from 6% in 2014 to 0% as of 2020, when New York’s last coal generation facility closed.
Here is the full breakdown according to the EIA:
Not as inspiring as the first graphic, is it? Clearly the state is experiencing growth in renewable energy sources but so too is it growing natural gas dependence. And, aside from the fact that natural gas is a fossil fuel and produces emissions, this level of dependence on natural gas for electricity means electricity prices are susceptible to natural gas price shocks. Basically, if the price of natural gas goes up, we can expect some increase in electricity prices.
Now, this isn’t always true. Electricity prices can rise or fall because of many different influences and they actually seem to be less correlated recently. But that seems to be because of other structural factors driving up the price of electricity, not because natural gas prices stopped having a relationship with electricity prices. So a jump in natural gas costs still very likely increases electricity prices in New York.
Why Renewable Energy is Different
This contrasts strikingly with our renewable sources of electricity, which are local and fairly insulated from commodity markets. So, the more we develop renewable alternatives, the less we are vulnerable to market spikes and international supply chains. Although, we would still need supply chains for the materials to build renewable facilities.
You can apply the same reasoning to hydro power, wind, etc. But there are a number of other sources of energy that are less commonly mentioned in public conversations.
Heat Recovery Examples
One of them is heat recovery, which is in use for decarbonization but doesn’t seem to have the same traction as the big name strategies mentioned above. We previously wrote about Thermal Energy Networks (TENs) and the idea of reusing already present heat in this blog but there is more to say, especially on the application of heat recovery technologies.
When someone takes a hot shower, most of that heat goes down the drain. With wastewater heat recovery technology, that heat could be repurposed to support water heating in the building, saving on the total energy use of hot water heaters. This is especially useful where there is a high density of residences. Apartment buildings, for example.
We can recover heat from air for the purpose of energy efficiency as well. A heat recovery ventilator (HRV) exchanges heat between incoming fresh air and outgoing, stale, indoor air. Say it’s cold outside. As the interior, warmer air exits the building, a heat exchanger transfers that warmth to the incoming, fresh, cool air. In this way, the building avoids having to heat air from the outdoor temperature to the indoor temperature. Conversely, if it’s hot outside, the heat from incoming warm air can be transferred to the already air conditioned cool air that is exiting the building, lowering the temperature of the outdoor air as it enters the building.
The concept here is more important than the individual details. We have untapped natural and manmade processes all around us that could allow us to forego national supply chains, exposure to commodity markets, and fossil fuel dependence in general.
Existing Natural Resources
In Kingston, we have an amazing, naturally occurring kinetic source of energy in the Hudson River and its tributaries. Rather than damming these resources, and incurring the ecological cost of such projects, we could use in-stream turbines that create electricity in a similar fashion to wind turbines. In addition to rivers, there is an opportunity for kinetic energy from waves and tides. The US Fish & Wildlife Service provides a good summary of ‘hydrokinetic’ energy sources here.
Image Source: Green City Times
Hydrokinetic energy has yet to be widely adopted. But, in Alaska, where rural communities struggle with high energy costs and dependence on diesel delivery, river and tidal power present promising alternatives as well as opportunities for relief. Alaska holds 40% of total U.S. river energy resources, 40% of total U.S. wave energy resources, and 90% of total U.S. tidal energy resources (Johnson and Pride, 2010). So their systems should originate from those resources.
Application of Concepts
In the same way, the Mid-Hudson Valley’s energy system should be built around its natural and constructed resources. We create heat, let’s use it. Tens of thousands of cubic feet of water rush past us every second, let’s use it. The makings of local, sustainable systems are all around us and if we’re going to respond to climate change with an urgency that is commensurate with the danger, we need to use all of them.
New York is rightfully focused on solar, offshore wind, and decarbonizing buildings to achieve CLCPA goals… but a growth in natural gas use is counterproductive and further invests our state in fossil fuel infrastructure. This moment needs to be met with material investment in what we can do and what we could do. Expanding our strategies, our thinking, and the way we perceive the potential of our environments is a key part of building grass roots support for this kind of development.
If you’re a Kingston resident interested in exploring energy alternatives for your community, we invite you to participate in our community led planning process to guide MHET’s future programs and initiatives by starting with this survey.
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