“Drill, Baby Drill” got us the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
But the fact that you repeat that mantra shows that you don’t understand energy economics. The US does not have ANY easily extracted petroleum reserves left. None. Saudi Arabia has huge amounts. It could, if it wished, dump so much oil on the world market at such low prices that ever well in America would be unable to recover its production costs. Higher costs are GOOD for American oil production because it makes more wells competitive.
Coal is a terribly dirty and dangerous fuel in every respect. People die from its extraction and burning. And it is unsuitable for motor vehicle fuel unless you want to bring back steam railway locomotives, which would require huge government subsidies. And most of the easily accessible coal in the Eastern US was mined out decades ago.
Natural gas is a fuel that is in plentiful supply in the US, but much of the gas requires advanced “fracking” techniques that are very problematic environmentally and very expensive. If such production ever comes to the Catskills, New York City will have to spend ten to twenty billion dollars on a new water treatment plant, as will all the upstate communities that rely on either Catskill groundwater or NYC surface water. NYC residents will see increased taxes and some of those small commuities might go bankrupt. The alternative is to make the gas producers pay for these externalities, but there probably isn’t the political will to do this, and in any case it would make the cost of the gas noncompetitive. It should be pointed out that the current ban on drilling for oil and gas in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico is in part based on the fact that the people in Florida think that their beaches are of greater economic value than the oil.
Nuclear power has not been cost effective in the US for decades. And it only works as an electricity generator. Electric cars have not taken the country by storm, to say the least.
Biofuels are generally not cost effective without subsidies.
Hydroelectric power has reached its maximum potential in the US.
Use of wind and solar power is increasing but they will never make up more than a small fraction of the energy supply in the US.
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The truth is that it will take a combination of most if not all of these to meet America’s future energy demands. “Drill, baby, drill” is a mantra not an energy plan. And higher energy prices are good because it will encourage more of these energy alternatives and potentially reduce the flow of dollars to the anti-Semites.