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."

Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by e-mail at mstrand@salina.com.