Jul. 4--This time, there are no gushers spilling oil everywhere. No farm villages that become boom towns overnight, only to empty out as wells start running dry.

Western Pennsylvania is at the start of what could be a longer, more widespread energy boom and period of influence than the frenzied time 150 years ago this August when America's oil industry was founded in the Titusville area.

This time, a half-dozen industries are taking part as the region tries to retake a key role in filling the nation's energy needs.

Natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale region covering more than half the state and parts of New York and West Virginia has slowed somewhat from last year because of lower prices, but experts said it eventually could turn out enough natural gas to sustain demand across the United States for 12 years or longer.

Companies that make equipment to generate solar and wind power are boosting local production as worldwide demand grows. Westinghouse Electric Co. has hired 2,600 people in the region over the past four years and is moving to a new headquarters in Cranberry this month as it builds nuclear plants worldwide.

On a smaller scale, a Leetsdale-based company last month launched a filtration system for biofuels blenders that's designed to prevent the common problem of surface crystallization, and meet new production standards.

"I've seen more places in the U.S. that have more biofuels companies," said Jonathan Dugan of Schroeder Biofuels, founded two years ago as part of industrial filters maker Schroeder Industries, which dates to 1946. "There's a big undercurrent of it beginning to emerge."

Pennsylvania remains the fourth-biggest coal producing state, with most of its output coming from bituminous reserves in its western regions -- including Greene County's Bailey Mine, the biggest underground coal mine nationwide.

Western Pennsylvania "really is unique in many ways" for its diverse energy businesses -- some related to its industrial past, others relatively new, said Edward S. Rubin, an environmental engineering and science professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Which industries will have the most success in coming years?

That depends, Rubin said, on how far government policy goes to further the use of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, and how tough it will get on issues such as trapping carbon emissions from fossil fuels underground.

Much also depends on technology advances -- whether solar power generated when the sun shines can be stored for a cloudy day, for example, he said.

Col. Edwin L.