fracking, a word

“‘Fracking,’ as the industry calls it, involves injecting a million gallons or more of water and chemicals deep underground to pry out gas that’s locked away in tight spaces.” – NPR

1. [annoyingmouse]

   I heard rumours on the etymology grapevine that it has its roots the far past when life here began out there… far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens… I’m drifting

   (anyone who can get that relatively obscure sci-fi reference at the end that suddenly made me feel just a tad more nerdy than when I started this comment deserves respect!)

2. [A Nusbaum]

   Just a minor quibble from someone who works in the Exploration/Production industry – typically there is no “K”, the term being short for Fracturing

3. [KurtMac]

   From the NPR article: “Halliburton, which pioneered hydraulic fracturing, says about 35,000 wells are fracked each year.”

   That sure explains all of this chafing.

   But seriously, read the article, very interesting in relation to the fact that I just watched The Corporation last night. I was in no way surprised when Halliburton showed up halfway through the article.

4. [andydw]

   I’m drifting into a lush habitable world, where beautiful cities are built?
   Respect my Google-fu if you like, you’re welcome.

   It’s no surprise that Halliburton pioneered fracking things up, though.

5. [Brandon West]

   Companies also pump nasty shit into the ground to store it there, called Deep Well Injection.

6. [LostInTX]

   #2 A NUSBAUM is correct; it’s frac, short for fracturing. No ‘K’. I also work in the industry.

   I’m not surprised the NPR article got it wrong, we have massive amounts of jargon and acronyms. My company maintains a large online TLA dictionary (three letter acronym).

7. [akbar56]

   I would also like to point out that the “Galactica” version of the word has no C.

   i.e. frak

   I’ve seen it spelled with the C and it looks wrong. Plus, its no longer then a 4 letter expletive.

8. [andydw]

   I would like to point out the following:

   Racing, pacing, facing, embracing, gracing
   Backing, hacking, stacking, packing, tracking

   Leave the ‘c’ out if you want, but it definitely needs the ‘k’. Just because oil engineers spell the word according to its technical derivation rather than the common rules of pronounciation, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be all Aspergers about it too.
   (Disclaimer: I am a scientist, so equal on the geek scale to the engineers I’m mocking. That makes it OK, really.)

9. [andydw]

   Damn! How do I fracing, fraking, fracking delete a comment? >:(

10. [andydw]

    By magic, it seems.

    • [Joel Johnson]

      hi!

11. [Nutsy]

    I was the solution mining engineer for Morton Salt for a number of years and we used hydrofracting to crack the salt layer and connect various wells so that water could be pumped down one well and saturated brine out the other. It’s really old technology. Today horizontal drilling techniques are used where the drilling rig fits a bit with it’s own motor to the end of the drill pipe. To drill horizontally, the drilling rig continuously turns the drill pipe, and then when the bit gets near the diretion that you want to drill, the drill motor also turns. This creates drilling more in one direction than the other and over several hundred feet, the bit will eventually be drilling horizontally. We drilled horizontal wells this way at over a mile in depth that extended nearly two miles horizontally, all through one 13 inch hole at surface.

12. [strider_mt2k]

    Goram worders…

13. [frogmarch]

    The original ’70s Galactica series did spell frack with a “c”. I say this with reasonable certainty because somewhere I have a copy of the novelization of the first 2 episodes (the attack on the colonies and the Ovion mines):

    http://montyonmovies.blogspot.com/2009/04/battlestar-galactica-original-one.html

    I was disappointed that “felgercarb” only made it into the reimagined series as a brand of toothpaste.

14. [remmelt]

    You know? Fracking, and to a lesser degree also gorram, always struck me as silly and wrong and took me out of the suspension of disbelief state.

    Jarring, that’s the word I was looking for.

    How come space people can’t just say goddamned fucking fuckshit motherfucker?

15. [strider_mt2k]

    Because curses evolve with language?

16. [remmelt]

    They sure do. That’s why it’s jarring when a script writer comes up with their own curses.

    Sure, it’s “because it’s in the future!” But that’s just a lame excuse.

17. [akbar56]

    @Remmelt

    Do you mean other than the obvious “lets get past the censors by making up swear words” reason?

18. [KurtMac]

    I think the BSG use of “Frak” sounds so weird to us and not-at-all like a swear word is because all of our English four-letter-curse-words have a vowel as the second letter. The overall sound of a vowel gives it a more throaty, deeper impact. The R in Frak is created too far to the front of the mouth, and is awkward. Fark sounds like a better swear word than Frak.

19. [akbar56]

    @19-Kurtmac

    So you don’t consider “Shit” to be a swear word?