Drilling tools are packed with'puter sensors that adjust on the fly

When the BP spill happened, said Takahashi-Kelso, "It was déjà vu. The same materials, same kinds of boom, same. It does not mean that simple technology is a bad thing, but I would say that the tools available haven't changed much in 25 years."
Others noted that Exxon, and the spills since, are probably inevitable as long as the U.S. is still extracting, transporting, and using oil.Said Athan Manuel, director of the lands protection program at the Sierra Club, "It's sad that we're here 25 years later still talking about the same issue –- the consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels."A new oil spill over the weekend, this time from a barge in Texas' Houston Ship Channel, has provided another example of the dangers that can'e from oil accidents.

The limit on liability for vessels like the Exxon Valdez was set at $10 million; for offshore production facilities, the limit was set at $75 million.The House passed a package of reform measures in 2010 following the BP blowout. But it never passed the Senate.But'panies still struggle with execution of the response plans when a spill does happen.But as environmental groups have noted, the amount of money'panies would be forced to pay has not gone up with inflation.From the office'puter to the drill site, to the wells that can stretch more than three miles underground, nearly everything in Pennsylvania's natural gas industry is different from just a few years ago.Drill holes are longer and smoother.

Drilling tools are packed with'puter sensors that adjust on the fly. Rock holding the gas gets cracked hundreds of times every few feet. Sand silos, 60 feet high, double as light towers at sites where rigs move in and out, around the clock, faster than before.Even in the offices of gas'pany executives working the shale boom, specialty software coordinates the rapid-fire scheduling."We didn't have any of that even 10 years ago," said Jeff Boggs, vice president of drilling at Consol Energy Inc. in Cecil. "So the advancement, just from the Marcellus ... would be like going from the industrial age to the'puter age."Drilling'panies working in Appalachia report such advancements as they perfect the science of cracking shale.