a299  1659  06 Aug 74
Energy 370
By TOM SIEBERT
Associated Press Writer
    DENVER, Colo. (AP) - Energy conservation is the major way the
United States will lessen dependence on foreign oil in the next two
or three years, Federal Energy Administrator John C. Sawhill said
Tuesday.
    ''I don't want to hold out to the American people the hope of some
Buck Rogers solution,'' he told newsmen. ''The focus will be on
conservation.
    ''I honestly don't think one or another technological development
is going to solve our energy problems. It's going to take a
combination.''
    He spoke at the first public hearings on Project Independence,
President Nixon's plan to make the United States self-sufficient in
energy by 1980. The program was undertaken after the Arab oil embargo
last fall.
    Project Independence hearings run through Friday here. Later this
summer, sessions will be held in nine other cities across the nation.
    Oil and mining experts, environmentalists and government officials
from the Rocky Mountain states testified at Tuesday's hearing.
    Sawhill downplayed the role of oil shale, coal gasification and
nuclear energy as alternatives to oil in the immediate future.
    Oil shale probably won't play a major energy role for five or 10
years and the environment will not be sacrificed to produce oil from
the porous rock, he said.
    Gov. John Vanderhoof, R-Colo., told the hearing that Western
governors will oppose plans to exploit the mineral wealth of the
mountain states unless nationwide conservation efforts are
intensified.
    ''We realize this great project must go on,'' said Vanderhoof, who
was recently elected chairman of the Western Governors Conference.
''But the disruption that will accompany it must be realized. We
insist that the rest of the nation get with it as well.''
    Robert W. Baldwin, president of Gulf Energy and Minerals Co., a
subsidiary of Gulf Oil, and Joseph R. Rensch, president of the
Pacific Lighting Corp., said there was urgent need for the government
to remove some roadblocks to energy development by private industry.
    Oil shale will eventually have to be developed ''no matter how fast
we build nuclear power plants, no matter how much oil is found in the
arctic or elsewhere,'' Baldwin said.
    
2001pED 08-06
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