Ethics: Geothermal Digging Vs. Potential Earthquakes

This is a really interesting computer model of how geothermal digging works and a California company that wants to dig 2 1/2 miles underground and break up the rock and pump water through it to create steam. There is a corresponding NY Times article about the controversy and a blog of comments on the various sides of the issue.

Geothermal Digging and Earthquakes

Opinions in the comments section varied from disdain to approval at the hopeful new source of clean, renewable energy.

This guy sums up my opinion:

Greed and stupidity among the human species will eventually be the death of us all and quite frankly mass extinction is what we deserve for trashing the planet and thinking that cheap energy sources is more important than a healthy planet!"--Norm

"There are no energy sources that do not have consequences resulting from exploitation. If we want energy, we have to decide which consequences we can tolerate. Otherwise, we need to go back to being hunter-gatherers."--Eric

Others had scientific responses that dubbed the article scare mongering and bad science. Another commenter pointed out that there is a greater travesty unfolding under the earth around NYC that is "hydraulic fracturing" to get at the layers of shale from which to extract natural gas. There is a fear that this will taint the water supply of millions.

As we accumulate more and more information we can each make up our own minds about the degree of the problem, how satisfactory are potential solutions, and what we each can do individually to try to make it better for all. The main thing to take from all of this is not to trust those with political or greed motives and to learn and evaluate for ourselves.