According to an Associated Press story on Friday, the nation's natural gas industry is looking for a new word to replace "fracking" to describe the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract gas from subterranean rock.
According to an Associated Press story on Friday, the nation's natural gas industry is looking for a new word to replace "fracking" to describe the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract gas from subterranean rock.
Some industry executives apparently believe the word has been co-opted by environmentalists, and is now used as a slur, calling to mind a less socially polite word that sounds similar and begins with the same letter.
As controversy over natural gas production in the Marcellus shale formation continues to build, the gas industry is undoubtedly working with public relations pros to come up with a more benign name for the hydraulic fracturing process.
One approach may be to come up with a harmless-sounding acronym to replace "frack."
Something like Nuanced Underground Detonation Gas Extraction, or NUDGE, could fit the bill, allowing "nudging" to replace "fracking." But one can only imagine the word combinations that will be tried and rejected before a sanitized "fracking" replacement can be identified.
Five soon-to-be rejected acronym root words for frack:
Fracture Reactive Injection Compound Kinesis
Fluidized Agent Recovery Technology
According to an Associated Press story on Friday, the nation's natural gas industry is looking for a new word to replace "fracking" to describe the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract gas from subterranean rock.
Some industry executives apparently believe the word has been co-opted by environmentalists, and is now used as a slur, calling to mind a less socially polite word that sounds similar and begins with the same letter.
As controversy over natural gas production in the Marcellus shale formation continues to build, the gas industry is undoubtedly working with public relations pros to come up with a more benign name for the hydraulic fracturing process.
One approach may be to come up with a harmless-sounding acronym to replace "frack."
Something like Nuanced Underground Detonation Gas Extraction, or NUDGE, could fit the bill, allowing "nudging" to replace "fracking." But one can only imagine the word combinations that will be tried and rejected before a sanitized "fracking" replacement can be identified.
Five soon-to-be rejected acronym root words for frack:
Fracture Reactive Injection Compound KinesisFluidized Agent Recovery TechnologyDeep Earth Fracture-Injected Liquid ExtractionPressurized Liquid UNderground Dispersed Energy RetrievalKinetic Introduction of Lateral Liquids***
While watching a long-range weather forecast that called for subfreezing temperatures tonight and Monday night, I came up with the snappy answer I should have given a gas station attendant when I pulled into the Clendenin Solo station 30-some years ago with 40-plus hens in my car.
I was moving from a farm I was renting in Clay County to one in Roane County. Since I lacked a truck, I removed the back seat from my car, lined the floor with newspapers, and then lifted my hens and one rooster one by one off their roosts at night, loosely tied their legs with baling twine, and placed them on the floor of my Datsun.
When I stopped to gas up, the Solo attendant gave my car's wall-to-wall chicken population a good look, and then turned a quizzical look my way. I mumbled something about getting tired of being henpecked and drove away.
But with the benefit of hindsight, I should have said I was only doing what the TV weatherman suggested with the approach of a cold snap:
Prepare to dress in layers.
