It's a dirty, nasty, labor intensive business. The U.S. would have to become quite poor to make the economics work. When push comes to shove, OPEC doesn't stray too far from Western needs for reasons I'm sure I don't need to spell out.

What the U.S .needs to do, in my opinion, is develop new battery technologies. Someone has to do it or we'll be back to going to war over oil.