If we're going to get this country out of its current energy situation, we can't just conserve our way out. We can't just drill our way out. We can't bomb our way out. We're going to do it the old-fashioned, American way. We're going to invent our way out, working together.

The quote argues that the energy challenge is not solvable through any single, familiar lever—demand reduction (“conserve”), expanded extraction (“drill”), or coercive geopolitics (“bomb”). Instead, it frames innovation as the distinctively “American” solution: creating new technologies, systems, and industries that change the underlying constraints. The closing emphasis on “working together” broadens invention beyond lone genius to coordinated effort across science, engineering, policy, and markets. In this reading, Sadoway is advocating a pragmatic, forward-looking energy strategy centered on research, deployment, and collaboration rather than scarcity management or force.