Michelle Rochniak | 8/18/2025
When people talk about eco-friendly energy, they sometimes use “clean” and “renewable” interchangeably. But they don’t necessarily mean the same thing.
Clean energy is energy that doesn’t release greenhouse gases. It includes solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy. It also includes nuclear energy—which doesn’t emit greenhouse gases but does create radioactive waste. Nuclear also harms the land, and Indigenous peoples generally oppose nuclear for that reason. For more on this, see Joe Heath’s (General Counsel of the Onondaga Nation) article for the Sierra Club.
Renewable energy is energy that is easily replenished. It uses resources that are essentially infinite. This category includes all of the above except nuclear. So, generally speaking, all renewable energy is clean, but not all clean energy is renewable.
As we create an energy transition that’s better for us and our planet, it’s important for the energy we use to be both clean and renewable.
Here at MHET, we’re excited for all kinds of clean, renewable energy. Our community solar program has slowly been growing over the last several months, and we’ve got our eyes on a couple of other clean energy projects. Eventually, we hope to bring agrivoltaics and thermal energy networks to the Hudson Valley.
Agrivoltaics combines farming and solar panels in one place. This allows farmers to maintain their farms and harvest clean, renewable energy at the same time. It also creates additional shade and can provide more space for pollinators.
Thermal energy networks, or TENs, use a network of pipes to distribute thermal energy for heating and cooling between buildings. The thermal energy comes from existing heat resources, like wastewater treatment plants, or from digging boreholes 500+ feet into the ground. Digging boreholes can be expensive upfront. But once the networks are in place, they’re clean, safe, and quiet. Most importantly, they can be more than 500% more efficient than current heating and cooling systems. This means they’ll allow us to use less energy and keep more resources within our community.
MHET has a lot of clean energy dreams. All of our work strives to allow the community to have energy democracy, or ownership over clean energy. It’ll take some time for it all to happen, but we’re confident that change can happen. Explore our website today to learn more and see how we can work together to help the Kingston community!