Skip to player
Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Search
Connect
Watch fullscreen
Like
Comments
Bookmark
Share
Add to Playlist
Report
Fracking explained
Australian Community Media
Follow
9/5/2023
You’ve heard of fracking, and you’re pretty sure lots of people don’t like it, but do you know how it actually works? Footage courtesy: HowStuffWorks.com
Category
📚
Learning
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
Fracking, you've heard of it, you know it's controversial,
00:02
but you might not know what it actually involves.
00:05
Never fear, we're here to put some fracking knowledge
00:08
in your brain.
00:09
Fracking is the delightfully cheeky sounding nickname
00:12
for hydraulic fracturing,
00:14
which sounds a little bit less delightful
00:16
and more like something you do to your enemies in StarCraft.
00:19
But no, it is something we do to rocks.
00:21
In the simplest terms, hydraulic fracturing
00:24
is a way of getting more of the valuable fluids
00:26
like oil and natural gas out of geologic formations
00:29
under the ground.
00:30
But these fossil fuels aren't like big lakes
00:33
where you can just stick a straw in and suck.
00:35
These reserves of oil and natural gas
00:37
are found locked up in pores
00:39
distributed throughout vast layers of rock like shale.
00:42
So how do you get them out at a reasonable pace?
00:45
Let's look at a typical fracking setup
00:47
for something like shale gas.
00:49
You start with a deep vertical well,
00:51
drilling a hole down to the level of the shale
00:53
that you want to mine.
00:54
The depth will vary, but just for example,
00:56
one company claims its average fracking well depth
00:58
is 7,700 feet.
01:01
That's deep.
01:02
Almost one and a half miles are about 2.3 kilometers.
01:05
When you're at the right depth,
01:07
you take a 90 degree turn
01:08
and continue to drill horizontally,
01:11
parallel to the target rock layer.
01:12
This horizontal section of the well
01:14
can also travel for thousands of feet.
01:17
Now here's where the fracturing comes in.
01:19
First, you open up holes
01:20
in the horizontal section of the pipe.
01:22
Then you vigorously push a liquid cocktail
01:25
known as fracking fluid down into the borehole
01:28
under high pressure.
01:29
This fracking fluid is usually a mixture of water,
01:32
some chemical additives like acids to help dissolve the rock
01:35
and gels to thicken the fluid,
01:37
and finally, solid particles called propants.
01:40
We'll get to those in a second.
01:41
When the mixture reaches the horizontal section of the pipe,
01:44
it bleeds out through the holes into the surrounding rock,
01:47
and the extremely high pressure causes the rock
01:49
to form tons of little fractures or cracks.
01:52
Through these cracks,
01:53
the reserves of fossil fuels contained in the rock
01:56
can escape into the well
01:57
and be pumped back up to the surface.
02:00
What was once entombed in ancient rock
02:02
is now on the way to powering your car,
02:04
heating the water for your next shower.
02:06
And those propants I mentioned,
02:08
which are often just grains of sand,
02:10
help prop the cracks in the rock open
02:12
so the Earth's precious bodily fluids
02:14
continue to escape into the well
02:16
without the miners having to apply continuous pressure.
Recommended
1:00
|
Up next
What is fracking?
National World - LocalTV
9/8/2022
0:40
Everything you need to know about fracking in the UK
National World - News and sport explainers
10/30/2019
1:34
Oil fracking in the United States
Brut America
3/25/2025
2:51
Fracking protesters react to Government announcement
Lancashire Post
9/22/2022
4:12
Fracking - all you need to know
Lancashire Post
6/7/2023
3:46
The Economist debates: Fracking
The Economist
2/27/2019
0:48
Fracking campaign promotional video
National World - Archive
7/15/2019
1:47
NDIS pricing limits for allied health will be set on Tuesday could disadvantage remote and regional communities
ABC NEWS (Australia)
today
1:59
Cancer survivor forced interstate to treat chronic pain
ABC NEWS (Australia)
yesterday
1:40
Chickens cross state borders for families lining up to start their own chook farm
ABC NEWS (Australia)
yesterday
0:24
Crystal Papali'i strip and score
The Canberra Times
today
0:30
Parental Guidance returns
The Canberra Times
yesterday
0:22
Kaeo Weekes' try against Knights. FootageNRL.com
The Canberra Times
yesterday
0:30
Police pursuit | Jun 26, 2025 | Illawarra Mercury
Illawarra Mercury
yesterday
2:15
Dolphin trapped in Mullet Creek, Dapto
Illawarra Mercury
yesterday
0:38
A bike is destroyed by fire on the bypass at Albion Park
Illawarra Mercury
3 days ago
0:50
Former Yellow Wiggle Emma launches Frozen show for school holidays
Australian Community Media
yesterday
4:24
Unseasonal rain in Queensland, coastal low off NSW
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
1:39
Cassius Turvey was trying to stop fight before 'racist' murder
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
1:15
$100K wagyu heist: cattle semen theft & vet scandal
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
1:15
Wagyu scam: man charged after allegedly stealing $100k in cattle semen
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
4:52
Regional fireys: how fighting fires saved their lives
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
4:52
How fighting fires saved their lives
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
1:05
Man arrested over alleged stabbing in Mount Druitt
Australian Community Media
2 days ago
1:23
Heat cam captures dramatic arrest after Porsche road rage pursuit
Australian Community Media
3 days ago