What Is Fracking?

Published: Jan 28, 2015 Duration: 00:03:00 Category: Science & Technology

Tags : Technology Science Gas Oil mining fracking natural gas shale brainstuff brain stuff howstuffworks how stuff works lauren vogelbaum shale gas hydraulic fracturing hydraulic fracking fossil fuels oil wells oil drilling gas drilling fracking fluid proppants shale fracking is fracking dangerous how does fracking work how fracking works fraking fracking diagram fracking definition frack

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(classical music) (chalkboard writing) - Fracking, you've heard of it, you know it's controversial. But you might not know what it actually involves. Never fear, we're here to put some fracking knowledge in your brain. Fracking is the delightfully cheeky-sounding nickname for hydraulic fracturing, which sounds a little bit less delightful and more like something you do to your enemies in StarCraft. But no, it is something we do to rocks. In the simplest terms, hydraulic fracturing is a way of getting more of the valuable fluids, like oil and natural gas, out of geologic formations under the ground. But these fossil fuels aren't like big lakes where you can just stick a straw in and suck. These reserves of oil and natural gas are found locked up in pores distributed throughout vast layers of rock like shale. So how do you get them out at a reasonable pace? Let's look at a typical fracking set up for something like shale gas. You start with a deep vertical well, drilling a hole down to the level of the shale that you want to mine. The depth will vary but just for example, one company claims its average fracking well depth is 7,700 feet. That's deep! Almost one and a half miles or about 2.3 kilometers. When you're at the right depth, you take a 90 degree turn and continue to drill horizontally, parallel to the target rock layer. This horizontal section of the well can also travel for thousands of feet. Now here's where the fracturing comes in. First you open up holes in the horizontal section of the pipe. Then you vigorously push a liquid cocktail known as fracking fluid down into the borehole under high pressure. This fracking fluid is usually a mixture of water, some chemical additives like acids to help dissolve the rock and gels to thicken the fluid, and finally, solid particles called proppants. We'll get to those in a second. When the mixture reaches the horizontal section of the pipe, it bleeds out through the holes into the surrounding rock and the extremely high pressure causes the rock to form tons of little fractures or cracks. Through these cracks, the reserves of fossil fuels contained in the rock can escape into the well and be pumped back up to the surface. What was once entombed in ancient rock is now on the way to powering your car, heating the water for your next shower. And those proppants I mentioned, which are often just grains of sand, help prop the cracks in the rock open so the earth's precious bodily fluids continue to escape into the well without the miners having to apply continuous pressure. So that's how it works. But then there's the entirely separate question of whether fracking is a good idea. It's really controversial in many parts of the world. Some people claim it consumes too much fresh water and worry about what will be done with the fracking fluid after it's been used. And some wonder if it will create earthquakes or cause chemical contaminants to leak into our groundwater. So what do you think about fracking? Let us know in the comments and subscribe if you want to keep learning more. And that's the fracking truth, so say we all? - [Group] So say we all! - Frack!

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