The Tiny Material That Could Replace Sand In Fracking

Those giant pyramids of sand at every frac site exist for one reason, and it turns out the industry might be quietly running short on the good stuff. Curtis Wilie and Josh Johnson of Superior Energy Services break down how a coal byproduct called fly ash is shaking up the proppant game, why something three times finer than sand outperforms it, and how pulling forgotten barrels from legacy wells could matter more than drilling new ones. Plenty of analogies, zero shame about the dumb questions.

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00:00  Why there's sand everywhere on a frac site

01:00  How hydraulic fracturing actually works

04:00  River frac in the 1930s and the search for the right proppant

06:00  The sand economy and a looming supply squeeze

09:00  Where sand comes from and the Permian conveyor belt

16:00  Meet EcoReach: fly ash instead of sand