CAN IT BE DONE?

The first reaction of the mass media to Project Independence was to ignore it; now they claim that nobody outside the White House seriously believes America can become energy independent by 1980.

"We cannot have an economic Fortress America," cries Sen. Kennedy from the soul depths of his speechwriters. "A narrow nationalistic goal," adds Sen. Muskie, chief author of the Clean Air Act snafu. "America will never again have enough oil," said an NBC energy special.

Project Independence, one would think from all this concern, relies on science-fiction energy from the galaxies. In fact, the projected figures for 1980 are quite prosaic. The chief energy sources by that time will still be coal (59%), oil (40%) and gas (17%).

The projected annual growth rate for the energy supply is less than 4%, and although there are difficulties not reflected by that figure in itself, it is a rate that the US has often exceeded without a crisisspurred effort. With trillions of tons of domestic coal reserves and almost 200 billion barrels of oil in the continental shelves, where do the Cassandras go for their information? To each other.

Nuclear power, by now a conventional energy source, is to increase by a factor of 13, which is admittedly a very steep increase. But it would bring the nuclear share of all energy up to only 3%, so that even if Nader's crusaders were to be successful in sabotaging half of the planned nuclear plants, they could affect only a piddling l.5% of the projected energy supply.

But if the goal of Project Independence can be achieved, that does not mean that it will be achieved. It will not be achieved if it is considered useless from the outset or if price controls, regulation, stifling taxation and emotion-swayed environmentalism prevent private enterprise from doing the job.

All that Project Independence needs to succeed is that the regulators and nationalizers get out of the way.