Earthquakes: Brought to you by Clean Energy!

Disclaimer: This is not a picture of the actual Swiss earthquake, but a pictorial representation of earthquakes in general. I am not "lying" or "misleading". Your earthquake may vary.

Seems there's a guy in Switzerland, a geologist named Markus Haering, who had a bright idea for "green" energy: Turn cold water to steam subterraneanly and use the steam to run a turbine. Give this guy a Nobel prize!
But, wait! It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature. Something about cold things contracting and hot things expanding...

The aim of Haering's project was to shoot cold water three miles underground, where naturally occurring rocks would turn it into steam. Using a steam turbine, the project was expected to generate clean energy to power 10,000 households and heat 2,700.

Unfortunately, the drilling was done on top of a fault line, in the middle of a city, causing a number of earthquakes, one of which had a 3.4 magnitude and resulted in Geopower Basel, the project leader, coughing up 9 million Swiss francs in property damages.

Oops.

H/T The Corner
Cross posted at Say Anything

Update: "naturally occurring rocks" This has been bothering me for a while. Did he expect to find un-naturally occurring rocks there?