In a wonderful new book, The Engines of Our Ingenuity, John Lienhard, University of Houston M.D. Anderson Professor of Mechanical Engineering and History, argues persuasively that we often fail to recognize the breadth of our technology and the suitability of its application to a specific time and purpose.
Lienhard bases his argument in the history of technological development. Let's use his discussion of watchmaking as an example. Here, you and I take a lot for granted, and in doing so, miss the whole point of the development of modern timekeeping. Take the hourglass. We might imagine it predates mechanical timekeeping by 1,000 or 2,000 years. In fact, Lienhard points out it was invented at the same time, about 700 years ago. We make the mistake about the age of the hourglass for a simple reason. We assume technology advances in relation to ever-more-sophisticated demand. In that assumption we often stumble. In fact, there was little need for a mechanical timekeeping device when it was invented, although its perfection codified elements of modern physics and was absolutely essential for later scientific and technological development. In fact, mechanical timepieces were notoriously inaccurate for the first 300 years of their existence. The hourglass, on the other hand, "found (its) niche in setting off blocks of time: the time between canonical hours in a monastery, or between watches on board a ship," says Lienhard. They were what we would call "fit for purpose."
Let me relate this to a project I was engaged in around 1993. I was hired to put together and head a team to do the safety assessment on a new-generation automated drilling rig built in Aberdeen, and underwritten by several major oil companies. Like the early watch, it was a wonderful piece of kit. Loaded with limit switches and programmable logic controllers, it was a technologist's dream, a revolutionary machine. And that was its value. It completely missed the mark as an operable mechanism to compete in the drilling market. It tripped pipe far too slowly. It was far too complex. Being a prototype, it was notably unreliable. It was the first watch.
Looking back on the experience, I make two conclusions. Parts of the rig were wonderful and have been employed on traditional and new-generation semiautomated rigs. In that respect, it was an essential step in the advancement of drilling technology even if, as a whole, the machine had little worth. But lamentably, it took some focus off the solid performance and flexibility of the standard drilling unit. Some of those involved in, and watching, the project developed an almost disdain for traditional technology. While it is hard to blame them, it did the industry little good.
I fear we have developed this same disdain across the board. To be sure, big, technologically challenging projects, such as those in deep water, are to be admired for their ability to further technology. But I fear we have become obsessed with them, much as early technologists were obsessed with the watch, while ignoring the practical applications of the hourglass. One could never argue the watch should not have been invented, much as one can never argue new technology is not essential for the progress of the industry. But what of less complex, proven technologies such as pumping units, gas injection and wireline intervention that sustain the majority of our production - our hourglasses, if you will? If we relegate them to the technological museum - and the current level of technical papers and R&D efforts suggest we are close to doing just that - we run the risk of focusing on the new age before our job is complete in this age. It is time to put our fascination with bright, shiny technology in perspective with relation to the job at hand. It is time to refocus some of our energies on traditional methods of exploration and recovery.

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