Back in June, the New York Times covered the story of a geothermal power plant in Basel, Switzerland that appear to be responsible for a magnitude 3.4 earthquake in 2006. The quake did some minor damage, and scared the bejesus out of local townsfolk.If the incident (there have been others, too, as the NYT article noted) is typical of geothermal energy projects, it'll make you wonder whether this form of renewable energy has a future in a post-fossil fuels world?
Scientists argue that it does in a new article published in this week's Eos (sub required). Here's why: let's say geothermal energy causes regular earthquakes, and that a few of them may even be strong ones. We know exactly what we're doing to the rocks beneath Basel or anywhere else; we're injecting them with fluid and extracting heat. And we can get a good idea of how those rocks respond by watching for the small, frequent, and harmless tremors we create.
Using some of the latest in earthquake monitoring technology, researchers believe they can predict when a plant's activity is pushing the rock's toward a big quake. Before things get too dangerous, plant operators can scale back operations, allowing stress in the rocks to be released gradually.
The thought of triggering earthquakes in our search for renewable energy seems pretty terrifying. But every form of 'clean energy' has its risks -- wind turbines catch flak for killing birds and bats, nuclear power plants have exceedingly hazardous waste, even solar energy installations can muck up local ecosystems.
The trick through all of this is going to be bringing impact and risk of damaging quakes down to a minimum. If we can do that, geothermal energy should be around for a long time.
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