From Boom to Bloodbath
The Permian Basin’s shale revolution is over and renewable energy is surging. What does that mean for Texas’ future?
Doug Chayka
By Justin Miller
July 27, 2020
For the past three years, Josh Thomas labored away on a sweltering shop floor as a valve technician. He would build, inspect, and test frac stacks—looking for the smallest imperfections, flagging parts in need of repair or replacement, testing components, and then assembling the stacks before they were sent out to drilling rigs in the Permian Basin.
Hydraulic fracturing requires almost unfathomable amounts of pressure, as truckloads of water, sand, and chemicals are pumped into the ground to open tiny fractures and release previously inaccessible pockets of oil and gas. To control that pressure, workers mount hulking assemblages of steel valves and piping—the frac stacks—at the wellhead.
