The United States faces an energy crisis and must fight it in multiple ways -- conservation, additional U.S. drilling, clean coal, building nuclear energy plants and using alternative energy when available, said Charles Jeter, a candidate for the Fourth District seat in Congress.

"We can never become energy independent from foreign oil," said Jeter, vice president for environmental affairs for RMT Inc. "What we can do is do better, a lot better, in developing our own oil resources. We can limit our dependence so we can be more selective."

He called for additional drilling off-shore, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- which he said can be done in an environmentally safe manner and could produce 1 million barrels a day -- and in currently low-producing fields in the Dakotas.

In addition, the United States lacks enough refining capacity and refineries with the ability to produce the numerous kinds of gasoline needed, he said.

Jeter, running in the Republican primary against incumbent Bob Inglis, also called for conservation, "which only makes good sense." But "we Americans do not have a mind-set of conservation. We are consumers. I think conservation will only occur when people are individually damaged."

He called for more energy-efficient houses and buildings as well as requiring vehicle fleets to have higher average gas mileage.

"I think you're seeing a movement toward that," he said.

America "can become energy independent on the electrical side," he said, calling for more coal-fired utility plants and for the industry to move toward the use of clean coal.

"The real solution is nuclear," he said, but that will be some years in the future. "The key for short-term electric energy demand is fossil fuel plants. Our long-term demand must be met by nuclear."

Two coal-fired utility plants and three nuclear plants are proposed by utilities to serve South Carolina, he said.

By supporting plug-in hybrid technology for cars, "we can move some of the dependence on gas over to nuclear," he said.

Jeter said the country needs to explore all alternative resources that make sense -- wind for one, he said. However, it currently provides only 1 percent of the U.S. energy mix and he doesn't expect it to ever provide more than 3 percent to 5 percent. For example, it would take a wind farm the size of Connecticut to provide the energy demand of New York City, he said. Solar is another possibility, but it's expensive and not always dependable.

Scientists and policy makers need to consider the results of alternative energy, he said. For example, "ethanol at first glance is good. We didn't count on the adverse impacts such as higher food prices. We've got to be careful of what we do."

But biosolids, such as switch grass, could be part of the answer. Landfill gases, such as the BMW-Waste Management project, is another resource that should be explored, he said.

Jeter said he doesn't think hydrogen-fueled transportation will be part of the big energy picture in the future but supports continuing research into it and other alternate fuels. The problem now, he said, is that producing hydrogen as a fuel consumes more energy than the fuel produces.

"We should always look for alternatives. There could be a breakthrough," he said.