[adventured]

Nobody is pretending that the concept of fracking didn't exist prior to the 1990s. That's a straw-man you set up and knocked down on your own. What changed is the process for fracking was made drastically more economical. Further, we had no idea exactly where the largest shale oil deposits were in 1950; over 3/4 of the currently known major Texas oil deposits were still unknown as of that date, to say nothing of the fact that our understanding of how much shale oil there was in the US, was next to non-existent. Even just 20 years ago our understanding of that was horrible. The Bakken as one example was only briefly described in 1953, and wasn't taken seriously for decades because so little was known about the reserves there.

The cost of using fracking to extract a barrel of oil has dropped by over 90% in 15 years. The cost in 1950 would have been so astronomical as to be silly. It's like pretending deep ocean drilling would have been viable in 1900, just because they had theories about how to do it.

[narrowrail]

What your comment misses is the significance of the combination of directional drilling (i.e. horizontal) and hydraulic fracturing. The process of fracturing shale rock formations in order to acquire crude oil has been refined for decades. It will only get more refined.

Your speculations about the future seem logical, but they are speculations nonetheless.

>Nobody is pretending that the concept of fracking didn't exist prior to the 1990s.

I do not think that is a fair statement. I'm a radio jukie (mostly NPR, but non-profit radio, in general). I certainly get the idea from these sources that fracing is something new. My father was fracing wells in Saudi Arabia in the '60s and my grandfather was drilling wells in OK in the 20s, so I have some background, FWIW.

[ArkyBeagle]

there's a reference to using dynamite and a water column in the 1949 movie "Tulsa". I'd always heard that this was done in the '40s, maybe even in the 30s to "wake up" a dead well.

Is that fracking? It's mostly likely about breaking rock, but it's not hydraulic fracturing. It's more like what perforating is now. Or something.

[dredmorbius]

Your statement is flatly incorrect. That's precisely the claim bduerst made. He set up the strawman:

"It took only 20 years for fracking to go from an experiment to full scale commercial roll out."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12287615

And yes, I knocked it down.

The New York Times first mentions fracturing as a "new method" in gas extraction in October of 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/business/energy-environmen...

There are a couple of possible interpretations.

One is that it took sixty, rather than twenty years, for fracking to move out of the experimental phase.

The other is that 32 job on 23 wells in 7 fields, in 1949, constituted production-scale operations.

You haven't asked, but I'll volunteer: what changed to make hydrofracturing commercially attractive were the combination of a global oil shortage, and a massive price spike, in 2007-2008. The fracking boom started shortly afterward. It's now in tremendous trouble on account of those same price dynamics, given its high costs of operation. You've got fracking operators with significant debts they need to service, with their only recourse to continue flooding oil and gas into markets which don't want the product.

New rig counts are down and have been down for the past few years -- you're not seeing new drilling, and the former boom towns of South Dakota and West Texas are going bust.

Bakken Shale hydrocarbon was being explored by 1909.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=bakken+shale&hl=en&as_s...

Schmoker, J. W. "Use of formation-density logs to determine organic-carbon content in Devonian shales of the western Appalachian Basin and an additional example based on the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin." Petroleum geology of the Devonian and Mississippian black shale of eastern North America: US Geological Survey Bulletin (1909): J1-J14.

It wasn't an area of active exploration, nor was off-shore deep-sea drilling, again, until the price of conventional oil drove new prospecting offshore. The first 40-50 years of offshore development were decidely shallow-water. Gulf Coast rigs were often only in knee-deep, or at best a few fathoms, of water. Not in thousand-foot depths.

But yes, as of 1900, the prospect of deep-water offshore drilling had in fact been contemplated:

Horton, Edward E. "STATUS OF DEEP WATER PRODUCTION SYSTEMS." (1900).

Britain certainly would have appreciated knowing she had abundant oil nearby in 1912 when Churchill committed to converting the Navy from coal (abundant domestically) to oil (not). But that didn't turn up until after the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks. It's also since largely played out.