INDUSTRY BACKING FOR FRACKING IS LACKING

A lighthearted look at the industry's search for a word to replace "FRACK" from the Charleston Gazette's Rick Steelhammer:

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

• Deep Earth Fracture-Injected Liquid Extraction

• Pressurized Liquid UNderground Dispersed Energy Retrieval

• Kinetic Introduction of Lateral Liquids 

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Thanks for the chuckle Rick!