About 25, 000 wells a year are being fracked, a process in which water, chemicals and sand are injected at high pressure underground to release trapped natural gas.

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With the engine running, he can see on-screen how much fuel should be injected given X throttle pressure or Y coolant temperature.

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Next week, if all goes according to plan, a small mountain of snow will be melted, repeatedly sterilised and then injected in a high-pressure stream of near-boiling water to clear a bore-hole through the two miles of the ice-sheet.

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The assertion is that hydraulic fracturing fluids, which are injected at high speed and high pressure to create cracks in the shale rock that traps natural gas, will seep into underground water aquifers.

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The city is also host to the world's largest gas-stimulation project in development: 240 million cubic feet of Tengiz natural gas is injected daily into the reservoirs to loosen up oil and boost well pressure.

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Carbo Ceramics ( CRR - news - people )(CRR, 73) , a Houston firm that makes various forms of "proppant, " particles (sand or a synthetic substitute) injected along with the fracking fluid to keep the fissures propped open after the pressure is withdrawn.

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