The problem of minimizing the energy of a system of N points on a sphere in R^3, interacting with the potential U = 1/r^s , s > 0, where r is the Euclidean distance between a pair of points, is considered. A method of projective coordinate descent using a fast calculation of the function and the gradient, as well as a second-order coordinate descent method that rapidly approaches the minimum values known from the literature is proposed.