ORONO – This time, we should do something about the nation’s energy situation, state officials and energy experts said Wednesday.

“The era of cheap energy is over,” Susan Tierney, a managing principal with The Analysis Group in Boston, told roughly 100 people Wednesday at a William S. Cohen Papers Forum at the University of Maine.

Tierney and other speakers at the forum pointed out, however, that this sentiment has been expressed before. Cohen himself, when he represented Maine’s 2nd District in Congress during the 1970s, said virtually the same thing about the energy crisis of that decade.

“The era of cheap, abundant oil is over,” Tierney quoted Cohen as saying roughly 30 years ago.

The latest leap in fuel prices, aggravated by damage hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused to Gulf Coast fuel refineries, has not led to fuel rationing and long lines at service stations nationwide as it did during the 1970s energy crisis. But the reality of having to pay fuel prices that are nearly 50 percent higher than they were a year ago should prompt leaders and citizens to take action, speakers at the forum agreed.

Americans should take precautions to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and vehicles, and national standards for energy use should be developed, they said.

“We should learn from this particular predicament that we never want to be in this situation again,” Gov. John Baldacci said at the forum.

Besides developing alternative energy sources, Maine can benefit economically by developing alternative energy industries, he said.

Tierney said that the new energy crunch and the domestic abundance of coal has renewed interest in building traditional coal-fired plants. The prospect of burning coal and the polluting emissions such plants would create, she said, “is a scary proposition.”

The best way to address the nation’s oil consumption is to drive more wisely and to make more fuel-efficient vehicles, she said.

“Fuel economy standards in the United States must be increased,” Tierney said. “We’ve got to turn the tide on that.”

Dr. Helena Chum with the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory said that it will take a variety of alternative energy sources to help decrease the national dependence on petroleum products. Wind power, solar energy and biomass fuels all must be developed, she said.

“There is no silver bullet,” Chum said. “We need many smaller silver bullets.”

Beth Nagusky, director of Maine’s Office of Energy Independence and Security, said every Maine household should replace three conventional light bulbs with compact, fluorescent bulbs. By doing this, she said, the statewide use of electricity can be reduced annually by 120 million kilowatt hours and $13.5 million in electricity costs could be saved every year.

Denis Bergeron with Maine Public Utilities Commission said energy consumption can be reduced with marketing and publicity. After all, he said, it is marketing that convinces many Americans to buy uncomfortable, dangerous and noisy sport-utility vehicles.

“If we can get someone to buy a Hummer,” he said, “why can’t we get them to buy the right kind of light bulb?”