Swiss Geologist On Trial For Causing Earthquakes

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Markus Haering's company had been working with the authorities in Basel, Switzerland to try to convert the heat in deep-seated rocks into electricity, but the project was suspended in 2006 when drilling triggered earthquakes, one of them with a magnitude of 3.4, leading Haering's company to pay out $9M in damages. Haering's team planned to drill a series of holes penetrating up to 3 miles (4.8 km) underground with water being pumped onto rocks with a temperature of more than 195C. Basel's location on top of a fault line – the upper Rhine trench – had been deliberately chosen because the heat was closer to the Earth's surface. A risk assessment has since shown that the prospect of further quakes is too high to continue drilling in the city. Haering faces up to five years in prison if the judge finds he intentionally damaged property. Haering has admitted the 3.4 magnitude earthquake was stronger than he had expected and that his team 'had very little knowledge of seismicity' before starting to drill, but called the quakes 'a learning process for everyone involved.' Despite Haering's trial, the Swiss appetite for geothermal projects has not diminished. Engineers are beginning preliminary drilling in Zurich to see whether that area was suitable for a similar scheme, and St. Gallen, in eastern Switzerland, plans to start work on its own geothermal project next year. Drilling efforts are being closely watched in the US, where the energy department is sponsoring more than 120 geothermal energy projects in several states."

Comments

US project shut down

[Rufus211]

Thankfully a project by the same company just north of San Francisco has been shut down. The last thing CA needs is more earthquakes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/science/earth/12quake.html

Re:Blahgh

[Rei]

Basel is EGS's "Altamont Pass". Altamont Pass was a wind farm that gave wind turbines their (undeserved) reputation as being bird killers. They built a wind farm right in the middle of a bird flyway, using low, fast-spinning turbines. It was a learning experience; nobody would be stupid enough to do that again.

It's the same thing with EGS and earthquakes. In Basel, they deliberately fractured an active fault that had previously destroyed the city. Nobody is going to be dumb enough to do that again.