If earthquakes are the problem then why different rules for fracking and geothermal plants?

That there should be rules - laws, regulations, even social standards can work at times - over what may be done as it affects others is an obvious truth. However, it is a standard part of a just system that rules are rules, the law is the law. Where the limitation is upon third party effects then the cause isn’t the point, it’s the effect. So, different causes of the same effect should be treated the same way under the same rules.

As the man said the rich are prevented from sleeping under bridges, stealing bread, too.

Fracking companies were riled after testing to extract heat, power and lithium from deep geothermal waters in the county last year triggered mini-earthquakes similar to those caused by fracking, but different regulations meant the work did not have to regularly pause as a result.

There is energy in those geothermal waters, there is lithium too. Gaining access to both of those may or may not turn out to be profitable. There is gas to be fracked in various shales, gaining access to that may or may not turn out to be profitable.

The third party effect being worried about here is earthquakes. In common with mining - in fact with anything that involves messing around with underlying rock and geological structures - there is a risk of those ‘quakes.

Therefore the regulations, the rules, on what the effect of the earthquakes upon the activities should be the same for each activity. They’re not. At which point it’s possible to come to the, and we admit the horror of even thinking that British politics could be so corrupted, conclusion that the fracking limitations are about killing fracking, not actually a concern about earthquakes at all.

It’s not only that co-opting the claim about safety regulations to advance a specific political cause is that undesirable political corruption. It’s also that different rules is grossly inefficient. If the rules do vary by the cause then it becomes ever more risky to try out new things that might create the effect. For who knows what the law will be on causes that have not yet been considered and codified?

That is, if we’re to have technological advance - the entire secret of making the world a better place - the rules have to be known and in advance. Not reliant upon whatever politics thinks of the cause but concentrated purely upon the effect.

If x, y and z all cause earthquakes - something oft true of fracking, geothermal and mining - then x, y and z should be treated equally under the law concerning the creation of earthquakes. Otherwise it’s not actually the rule of law, is it?