> Is there any conceivable burden urbanites don't imagine the people and land outside urban areas can tolerate?

The burden of wealth.

Huh? Read my comment. I did not suggest there are no building in non-urban areas. Just fewer, and thus it would be less expensive to make them earthquake proof.

Japan deals with natural earthquakes all the time. Earthquakes stronger than whatever a bit of geothermal energy production would produce.

Because Japan deals with natural earthquakes all the time, japan has quake-safety standards. They were written in blood, and don’t exist in places which don’t routinely have earthquakes, because quake safety is constraining and expensive.

Retrofitting an entire country for quake safety because you’ve decided to create artificial earthquakes is inane.

Who suggested an entire country? We are talking about small-ish areas.

You have literally no idea how wide the geological destabilisation would reach.

Given the example quoted, not all that far. One article talked about Strasbourg having some minor wobbles, not the entire region. They would have surely seized on the sensationalism of reporting a wider impact.

Of course, there's no clear border. Wobbles will be biggest at the epicentre and get smaller further out.

In any case, you just do the actuarial math, and figure out how much it would cost to wobble-prove buildings in the area in question, and stick that into your cost benefit analysis. It's not like other forms of energy generation are completely without downsides either.

> We don't live in grass yurts you know. Bridges and dams are a thing. Earthquakes are a problem. Deep fracking operations have demonstrated this already.

What percentage of rural areas are situated in close proximity to large dams and bridges?

Your statement is unclear, are you saying it doesn’t matter if dams and bridges get destroyed, or that it doesn’t matter if rural habitations get destroyed as long as they’re not destroyed near infrastructure?

It’s perfectly clear if you read it without trying to be deliberately obtuse.