Bad News for Geothermal Energy: Two Major Projects Bite the Dust

Dreams that major geothermal energy plants could power our future took a major hit last week, as worries over earthquakes and technical failures killed two ambitious projects in consecutive days. The two projects both hoped to harvest the heat of deeply buried bedrock by drilling down, fracturing the rock, and then circulating water through the fissures to produce steam that could drive turbines. First, on Thursday, the $60 million plan to tap geothermal energy beneath Basel, Switzerland, died for good after a Swiss government study said it would cause millions of dollars in damage through earthquakes each year.