page_title: Hydraulic fracturing
section_title: Public debate
hierarchical_section_title: Hydraulic fracturing / Public debate
caption_attribution_description: English: Placard against hydraulic fracturing, at Extinction Rebellion. "Frack off: no hydraulic fracking here".
context_page_description: Hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, fracing, hydrofracking, fraccing, frac'ing, and hydrofracturing, is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of 'fracking fluid' into a wellbore to create cracks in the deep-rock formations through which natural gas, petroleum, and brine will flow more freely. When the hydraulic pressure is removed from the well, small grains of hydraulic fracturing proppants hold the fractures open.
  Hydraulic fracturing began as an experiment in 1947, and the first commercially successful application followed in 1950. As of 2012, 2.5 million "frac jobs" had been performed worldwide on oil and gas wells; over one million of those within the U.S. Such treatment is generally necessary to achieve adequate flow rates in shale gas, tight gas, tight oil, and coal seam gas wells. Some hydraulic fractures can form naturally in certain veins or dikes. Drilling and hydraulic fracturing have made the United States a major crude oil exporter as of 2019, but leakage of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has dramatically increased.
caption: Placard against hydraulic fracturing at Extinction Rebellion (2018)
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