Just like your first posting, you take things that were NEVER done and mis-attribute them. 
Scientists never said "We can't just drill our way to lower gas prices." . It was a Politician (namely O) that said that.  To attribute it to NREL just because you want AE gone makes little sense. 

Secondly, most of the wind, solar, geo-thermal, tidal advances have come from NREL. Wind is our 4 cheapest form of electricity Geo-thermal, hydro, nat gas, in that order, are cheaper than all other forms of electricity. That is thanx to NREL as well as ppl like Gardner backing it.  In fact, even the oil/gas/coal companies back NREL.