Geologist by training here and it’s been many years but as I recall, subsurface geothermal systems can be quite complex, especially in regional systems like Yellowstone, Iceland, New Zealand etc.

The hope, as I understand it, revolving around geothermal in the United States is tapping into much larger areas, namely the basin and range region, where subsurface temperatures are much higher than other areas. In this area, while there are many natural hot springs, they are remote and less commercial so disruption would have less impact. The benifits could also be fantastic since there is a huge area that has potential. (Most of Nevada and Western Utah). The biggest challenge is the complexity of underground faulting throughout the region. We can understand the general structure (hence the name “Basin and Range”), but the details are a challenge. At each macro fault you have lots of microfaulting and if you are attempting to scale up an energy production facility over an area you risk disrupting the system with each fracked well.

If we can very accurately map the subsurface, it’ll go a long way towards making this energy source much more viable. (We’ve had years to get better at microfracking so getting an accurate map of what’s down there is most important)

Lots of meta-level comments here so I’ll add one that’s more in the weeds:

In an office job, it’s always good to be friendly with IT and the office manager/administrative assistant.

This is a great community.

The Lemmy community is far better than the subreddit

Fair enough, good reply.

Upvoted :)

(Maybe Lemmy will bring back some good discussions in threads like these…)

I think the public gets fatigued when we hear about the profits these companies make and then we see these comparatively small fines.

If this is how we “steer the vessel of regulation” then I can accept that this is a push in a better direction.

However, I still feel that a fine in the hundreds of millions, ( not bankrupting but a “shot in the leg” versus a “slap on the wrist”), is appropriate for these very large corporations. They already weild so much political and economic power that consequences for things like this should be higher.

In other words, let’s encourage them to operate responsibly in the first place.

Agreed.

I only mentioned my range because then perhaps it would move to a different column in their budget.

25 million is nothing to Amazon.

A couple of billion might move it into an enterily new spreadsheet and maybe even precipitate a meeting to figure out who needs to be fired. Maybe.

This isn’t a “fine” to Amazon. 25 million dollars is just the cost of business.

Make this 250 or 500 million and then… Maybe… it’s a fine.