Shooting the Well: The Petroleum Torpedoes of the Early Oil Fields

Almost immediately after we started drilling wells, we started fracturing the rocks underground to increase the flow of fossil fuels.

ALEXIS C. MADRIGALAUG 21 2013, 3:45 PM ET

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Before the fracked gas boom of the last 10 years, before the rise of mega oil companies, before the entire 20th century, actually, humans figured out how to increase the flow of fossil fuels from a well. It was simple: take an iron container about the size of a large thermos, stick some black powder or other explosives into it, stick a blasting cap on it, send it down the well, and then send a weight down to detonate it. BOOM. They called this, "Shooting the well!" And I believe the "!" is required, as in Yahoo!
The process was first commercialized by Colonel E.A.L. Roberts in 1865, a veteran of the Civil War, and he soon formed the The Roberts Petroleum Torpedo Company. But his success spawned a host of imitators, and the whole thing devolved into a patent brawl out there in eastern Pennsylvania near Titusville in the region that was once known as Petrolia. (I told this story in my book on the history of green technology because... well, I think because who can resist petroleum torpedoes?)