‘Drill, baby, drill’ is an outdated idea these days
By Lethbridge Herald on August 12, 2025.
Jory Cohen
Quoi Media
“Drill, baby, drill!” is a quote most of us attribute to President Donald Trump during his inaugural address in January of this year, but it first made headlines in 2008 as a Republican campaign slogan.
While the environmental benefits of renewable energy production relative to fossil fuel energy generation are hard to ignore, what often gets overlooked are the financial advantages of cleaner sources of energy.
According to the most recent report published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in 2023 the average cost of energy production via solar photovoltaic systems (aka solar panels) was less expensive than power produced through burning fossil fuels by more than half (56 per cent cheaper). The average cost of energy produced by onshore wind projects was only two thirds the cost of energy powered by fossil fuels.
It wasn’t always like this.
More than a decade ago, when analyzing the short-term economics of fossil fuels, “drill, baby, drill” was at least financially defensible. In 2010, solar power cost more than five times energy produced by fossil fuels, and onshore wind was 23 per cent more expensive. (Although this calculation ignores the risk of future stranded assets if fossil fuel reserves are forced to be left untouched, becoming devalued and resulting in a liability on balance sheets).
Back then, the argument for fossil fuels could be rationalized, but these days, nodding to the chorus of “drill, baby, drill” is simply out of tune.
People tend to point their finger at subsidies as the reason for greener power cost efficiencies, but that argument just doesn’t hold up. In the most recent report focused on energy subsidies, with data from 2017, IRENA estimated global subsidies to the energy sector to be at a minimum, $634 billion (USD). Approximately 70 per cent of this total supported fossil fuel production, while 20 per cent was directed at renewables. The balance was allocated to biofuels and nuclear.
Subsidies simply aren’t the reason why clean energy is now the more affordable option.
Technology advances and manufacturing efficiencies, coupled with low operational and on-going maintenance expenses relative to fossil fuels, have led to drastic cost reductions when producing cleaner forms of energy, in particular from solar and onshore wind sources.
The global average cost of installed solar panels was $130 USD per watt way back in 1975. It was $6.41 per watt in 2000 and $0.31 in 2023.
Whether you roll your eyes at the term global warming or you’re David Suzuki himself, the economics of renewable energy generation should be a breath of fresh air — literally. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of the United Nations, reported that approximately 89 per cent of CO2 emissions globally were the result of fossil fuels (2017 data).
Does this mean that we should immediately drop fossil fuels altogether? We can’t.
According to the International Energy Agency, renewable electricity generation was about 30 per cent of total global energy production in 2023. Turning away from fossil fuels suddenly would cripple the world, but the transition to cleaner sources is essential from both a financial and environmental perspective.
The notion of “drill, baby, drill” turns a blind eye to the bottom line and the health of our planet.
We know now that renewables are more financially viable than fossil fuel alternatives, and significantly more environmentally conscious too. The cost to produce clean energy, in particular, from solar and onshore wind sources, has decreased dramatically over the past decade.
Our world is powered by energy. We might as well invest in the more affordable greener alternatives, especially given their beneficial effects on the environment.
“Drill, baby, drill” was so 2008.
Jory Cohen is the director of finance and impact investment at Inspirit Foundation.
©Quoi Media
21-20
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I am all for finding better ways of supplying our energy needs and appreciate your expression of thoughts. I would like to address the elephant in the room though.
‘While the environmental benefits of renewable energy production relative to fossil fuel energy generation are hard to ignore, what often gets overlooked are the financial advantages of cleaner sources of energy.’
The solar energy and wind energy are not green and have a greater carbon foot print than fossil fuels, yet this important factor has been ignored and even covered up. No good recycling methods have been found yet for solar panels or the massive wind farm blades that do not create more GHG’s in the process.
Nuclear energy creates dangerous nuclear waste that lasts hundreds of years.
I am not against moving away from fossil fuels and look forward to seeing better replacements than what we now have, replacements that they portray as greener, but are far from it.
I do not trust the United Nations or any or their connected organizations after witnessing continuing failures in the last 3 decades and found them spewing disinformation in several areas and ignoring tangible proof that contradicts there ‘dictations’. That is for another thread though. It is like the news, which appears to have lost the moral values of reporting the truth and facts, and now are used as propaganda machines.
We do need to do better at looking after our planet and I supposed responsible actions in doing so, which include cutting plastics and Teflon. There has been some excellent research on CO2 capture using bacteria to make a greener biodegradable plastic:
‘…chemical engineers in Korea have harnessed bacteria to efficiently turn carbon dioxide into a biodegradable plastic. This could be “an exceptional strategy for lowering CO2 emission and producing environmentally friendly bioplastics,” they write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.’
Biodegradable plastic is defined by its ability to break down completely into substances found in nature, and in a reasonable time frame. This sounds good in theory, but in practice, doesn’t often work.
So you lower GHG’s by cutting fossil fuel plastics and by also capturing CO2 and using bacteria to produce a greener plastic that replaces the old plastics made from fossil fuels.
There is a lot of great R&D on carbon capture and reducing GHG’s from fossil fuel production to help as we find better alternatives as well.
Having had ties to the oil industry I know this is not about drilling more wells and creating more production this is about collecting a fair price in Oil Royalties like Lougheed did and these Reformers destroyed and this article proves it: ” Royalties Down 32% Billions In Federal Revenue Lost”.
It isn’t a problem in Alaska and Norway so why is it in Alberta, when it wasn’t under Lougheed?
Were you taking four years off when Notley et al Diana review which stopped investment for nine months and the after the review DID NOTHING.
While Lougheed was furious with Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach for what they had done to our oil wealth Klein invited the world to come to Alberta to get our next to free oil totally ignorant of the fact that we had no way of getting it to market. It created a massive surplus pushing our profits down ever more.
As we pursue our own destruction, it is nice to be reminded that: warming is happening now; it is caused by record levels of CO2; burning fossil fuels has caused these record levels; there is scientific consensus about this; and warming is permanent. There is no time left to prevaricate. Humanity will not avoid the impacts.