So, on a hunch that everyone else was wrong, Mitchell and his team began digging around in a spot around Fort Worth called the Barnett Shale. To crack the code, Mitchell Energy & Development tried a number of tweaks on a process of fracturing the source rock with a pressurized fluid. The theory was that cracking the shale through this “fracking” method would cause it to give up its gas.
A New Twist on an Old Technology
It’s important to point out that fracking wasn’t a new technology. While George Mitchell is often called “The Father of Fracking,” he’s certainly not the inventor of this technique. Fracking was first used way back in 1947 for drilling in limestone deposits. But Mitchell’s moniker is not for nothing. For one, fracking limestone and fracking shale are two completely different operations. For another, the fracking technology as it existed in the 1980s just didn’t make shale gas extraction economically feasible.
