Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by e-mail at mstrand@salina.com.
Salina Journal
The wind was gusting all day Saturday, but just as Nancy Jackson
started her talk about the potential of wind energy in Kansas, a
particularly strong burst sent a cloud of dust swirling through the big
barn at The Land Institute, toppling a few empty folding chairs.
But as much wind as there is in Kansas, it shouldn't be relied on to
feed our growing hunger for energy and prevent further climate change;
rather, what's needed is a combination of renewable energy sources,
efficiency -- and a change in the basic structure of our lives, said
several speakers at the Prairie Festival on Saturday.
Jackson, who heads The Land Institute's new Climate and Energy
Project, which is pushing for wind power and other alternatives to new
coal-fired generating plants, chuckled and kept on.
She had been explaining to the crowd of several hundred gathered for
The Land Institute's annual Prairie Festival that solving the country's
energy problems requires several solutions, among them efficiency,
conservation and renewable energy sources such as wind.
"Wind is the sexy part," she said -- just as the gust swept through.
"But our first, best shot is really efficiency and conservation."
"Efficiency is a resource," agreed Scott Allegrucci, assistant
director of the Lawrence-based project, who said the group's goal is to
work with schools, churches, civic groups, utility companies and others
to spread the word about those alternatives to building new coal-fired
power plants.
Even Pete Ferrell, who helped establish Elk River Wind Farm in
southeast Kansas on ranchland belonging to him and others in the area,
said he doesn't see wind turbines as filling the growing need for
power.
Ferrell spent years researching the potential of wind power before
deciding to help establish the wind farm near Beaumont that supplies
power to Joplin-based Empire District Electric company.
"I took hell for this," Ferrell said. "I was called a lot of things to my face."
A main objection to wind power is that the turbines ruin the scenic beauty of the open prairie.
"Some think wind turbines are unsightly," he said. "I think
flag-draped coffins coming home from the Middle East are unsightly. I
find (wind turbines) elegant and graceful."
And though the wind farm has produced power every day since it
started, and saved Empire District customers some $3 million to $4
million a quarter compared to the utility buying power on the spot
market, Ferrell said he sees wind power as just one part of the
solution.
"Wind power isn't the answer," he said. "It would be irresponsible for me to tell you wind power will solve everything."
The fact is, he said, "no other energy source can provide power as
well as fossil fuels -- we've got to reduce our consumption. Wind power
can provide a soft landing."
Reducing consumption has a good head start in Vermont, where the
typical 1.5 percent annual growth in power consumption already is
slowing and may actually go into decline in the next few years, thanks
to a statewide initiative.
Blair Hamilton, policy director for Vermont Energy Investment Corp.,
told the crowd that his organization's energy savings projects cost
about 3 cents per kilowatt-hour saved, compared to a cost of 10 cents
per kilowatt-hour in Vermont.
"The greenest kilowatt-hour is the one you don't use," he said.
Funded through a 4 percent charge on electric bills, the project
provides education, tax incentives and grants to improve energy
efficiency; in one example, a dairy was advised to use an ammonia-based
refrigeration system that would cost $400,000 to install but save
$100,000 a year in energy.
At the individual level, the project provides rebates to people who
buy Energy Star-rated appliances, and has even sponsored efforts to
give free compact fluorescent lamps to every home in a given town.
As all of those efforts continue to gain momentum, Hamilton said, he
expects electricity usage in Vermont to not only continue to grow
slower but to drop within a few years.
Not good enough
But all of those efforts -- from wind power to biodiesel to
high-tech light bulbs -- aren't enough to preserve what James Howard
Kunstler calls our "happy motoring culture."
Kunstler, a New York author and frequent speaker at environmental
conferences, said he sees more similarities than differences between
the "greenies" and the giant corporations, land developers and others
they oppose.
What they have in common is a belief -- a delusion, Kunstler says --
that the current way of life can be maintained; the only difference is
that "green yuppies" think they'll have to pull up to the filling
station and put something other than gasoline in their fuel tanks.
"Dependence on foreign oil isn't the problem," Kunstler said.
"Dependence on a living arrangement that depends on foreign oil is the
problem."
Kunstler, who envisioned the post-oil world in his 2005 book "The
Long Emergency," said that even when talking with people at
environmental conferences, he often runs into the "I just bought a
Prius, give me a medal" way of thinking, along with college students
who support biodiesel so they can continue to drive their SUVs into the
mountains to go snowboarding.
Those who champion research into alternative fuels and
high-efficiency cars are "perpetuating the idea that we can continue to
be car-dependent," Kunstler said. "There's no silver bullet that will
allow happy motoring to continue ... we're not going to run the
interstate highway system and Disney World and Wal-Mart on any
combination of wind, solar, french-fry oil or switchgrass."
That, in turn, means the spread-out, suburban way of life -- which
grew up in an era of cheap energy -- is "a living arrangement with no
future. We're not going to run it on any of these fantasy
alternatives."
What will happen, he predicts, is that society will -- after some
years of turmoil and disruption -- come to look a lot more like it did
at the beginning of the 20th century; smaller cities, more people
living in rural areas and working on producing food, and greater
reliance on moving people and goods by river and rail instead of by
truck and airplane.
To help make that change easier, he said the nation should start
rehabilitating its rail system now, while it has the wealth to afford
it. Turning to railroads for transportation between cities a few
hundred miles apart would go a long way to helping curb oil consumption
¬-- and reduce congestion at airports.
Kunstler noted that none of the top-tier presidential candidates are
talking about rail travel "because you in the environmental movement
are talking about running your cars on french-fry oil."
n Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by e-mail at mstrand@salina.com.
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