The 42-Mile-Long ‘Dune Express’ Conveyor Belt Is Moving Sand in Texas

Fracking is the process by which oil and natural gas are pulled out of the earth by pumping water, sand, and chemicals into shale rock to crack open oil and gas deposits. It’s also fairly unpopular with the American people, with a 2024 Pew Research poll finding that only 44 percent of Americans support hydraulic fracking, while 53 percent are opposed to it.

Probably has something to do with the contamination of drinking water and the fact that fracking makes your entire town smell like farts.

The Dune Express is a massive 42-mile-long conveyor belt that transports sand for hydraulic fracking, keeping massive trucks loaded with tons of sand off the busy roads of West Texas. Installed by a company called Atlas Energy Solutions, the giant conveyor belt helps fracking materials get transported more quickly and efficiently, since the energy boom Texas has been experiencing in recent years has packed its small rural roads with traffic that delays the shipment of materials.  

Rather than loading a truck with sand and waiting for it to navigate the packed roads of West Texas, frackers can now transport up to 13 tons of sand in one go at a steady pace of 10 miles per hour for 12 to 14 hours a day along this massive conveyor belt that doesn’t need to slow down for a car accident or get stuck in unexpected traffic.

The mammoth $400 million project that stretches from Kermit, Texas into Lee County, New Mexico, isn’t without its environmental concerns, because of course the thing that powers an environmentally hazardous energy project has some environmental downsides itself.

Environmentalists are concerned that the ruthless efficiency with which the Dune Express conveyor belt will deliver sand to fracking sites will only lead to more drilling, which seems inevitable considering that the current 12-to-14-hour days the conveyor belt operates will eventually be expanded to 24/7 operation. That means even more pollution, even more environmental disruption, and even more fart smells.

Fracking is going to keep happening regardless of what we think about it, at least until something major causes it to go out of style or replaces it as an energy source. Until then, we can at least marvel at some of the machinery that makes it happen and hope that one day it can be put to better use.