Earthquakes. There is no need to explain what they are. The link between Geothermal power plants, and seismic activity is undeniable and abundant.
Geothermal plant in Basel Switzerland, has caused two separate earthquakes, one a 3.4, and the other a 3.1. Both were centered on the power plant cite.
Recently, some areas near The Geysers geothermal field in California have been experiencing increased seismic activity.
Any fluid injection deep into the ground can cause earthquakes, and large ones. In the 60s, the US Army attempted to dispose of contaminated fluids by injecting them into a 4 km deep well. Months later thousands of earthquakes rocked the area, some of which were over 5.0 on the scale.
A list of man made earthquakes due to water injection.
COMMON REBUTTALS
Geothermal is new and largely experimental. Geo-Energy.org disagrees. Geothermal power is well developed and widely used across the planet.
Geothermal is not support by our government. Geothermal power is already given a tax credit of 1.9 per kwh, and still is more expensive than most other power sources.
Geothermal is suppressed by US BigOil. I have no link for this one because... it's stupid. No one anywhere can detail for me how or when or where BigOil has suppressed Geothermal power. In fact, no one can even show me a motive for it. This is especially stupid since I already proved US leads the world in Geo-power. As soon as I fill up my Buick with Geo-power, and turn on my computer with Regular Unleaded, then we'll talk about what conflict BigOil has with Geo-power.
CONCLUSION
In essence, Geothermal power has a great limited future for supplying some electrical power in specific instances. However, beyond this, it does not constitute a permanent long term power generation solution.
