Indeed, of the approximately one million U.S. These advances, combined with an influx of investment amid high global fossil fuel prices, sent fracking into overdrive. The other innovation was the pairing of fracking with horizontal drilling, a technique that increases the productive potential of each well because it can reach more of the rock formation that contains the oil and gas. One was the use of a certain type of fracturing fluid: slickwater, a mix of water, sand, and chemicals to make the fluid less viscous. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 21st century, however, that two key changes helped spark fracking’s current boom. In the 1940s, explosives were replaced with high-pressure blasts of liquids, and so “hydraulic” fracking became the standard in the oil and gas industry. When water was then pumped into the well, oil flows increased-in some cases by as much as 1,200 percent-and fracking was established as a way to increase a well’s productive potential. A few years later, he applied his battlefield observations to the design of an “exploding torpedo” that could be lowered into an oil well and detonated, shattering surrounding rock. In the midst of fighting during the Civil War’s Battle of Fredericksburg, Roberts noted the impact that artillery had on narrow, water-filled channels. The idea for fracking-or “ shooting the well,” as the practice was once referred to-dates back to 1862 and has been credited to a Colonel Edward A.
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