How is geothermal drilling different from other energy projects like natural gas or oil?
There are some similarities to oil fields. In oil fields for secondary recovery, they inject water into the ground to try to force more oil out. Frequently, though, oil fields aren’t located in tectonically active areas. So why don’t they do geothermal drilling somewhere that isn’t prone to earthquakes? In Texas, you don’t have the heat source. If you drill all the way to the outer core, there will be molten rock. But nobody knows how to do that. In tectonically active areas, you have more heat sources (from failed volcanoes and the like). There is some geothermal potential all over the country if we’re talking about geothermal for heating – but not necessarily for spinning large turbines. Do these little earthquakes help relieve any building pressure to help stave off larger quakes? Unfortunately that’s a myth. Does deeper drilling mean stronger earthquakes? The more important issue is how big a fracture is – how big an earthquake are they generating. If they intersect an existing fra
