this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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I've been thinking that for a while. Issue is that it's risky, if you fuck up there's a pretty high chance that there are going to be a lot of houses with cracks in their walls (assuming you're doing it in a relatively densely populated area that doesn't normally see earthquakes).
Any powerplant will usually done in a pretty isolated area for safety reason, so i'd assume the chance of it happen is very, very slim. If location isn't permitted it's probably shouldn't be build, especially for the type that need to dig very deep to access the heat, so solar panel on roof is probably the best way for any power generation that is placed close or in the populated area.
Here in Germany, that hasn't been true at all so far. For starters, there aren't any "pretty isolated areas" in the first place, since the entire country is pretty densely settled compared to e.g. Iceland. There are still some ongoing projects, though, IIRC they are usually being done for district heating, which has to be near populated areas per definition. I think these types of projects aren't as likely to create earthquakes as the ones for electricity in Iceland, though.
I remember seeing a documentary about a village in Germany, where many houses were damaged by geothermal plants, caused by water entering layers where it usually didn't reach and the material there taking in water and expanding. So it probably depends a lot on the local geology and also on the depth. I sadly don't remember how deep the one in the documentary was.
I know a few people that got geothermal heating installed for their homes (in Germany), which goes a lot less deep than something intended for whole cities or districts. The one at my friend's home is 50m deep, and it looks like anything less than 400m is considered "near surface"