We aren't talking about the earth being blown off course though, just that there is a large amount of energy that was previously unaccounted for and that this energy is large enough to trigger an earth quake at vulnerable parts.

Do the back-of-the-envelope computation of how much energy reaches Earth from a coronal mass ejection and see how well your idea holds up. (a typical flare is 10^16 grams of matter moving at about 450 km/sec)

You don't need a ton of energy to set off a possible chain reaction events.

CMEs reaching earth likely account for a mere fraction of the energy flowing through the global electric circuit at any moment.

Moreover, your suggestion seems to indicate that you’re only considering kinetic energy, which would be a very myopic and reductionist take on these matters.

Freezing water>ice shatters a cast iron pipe. It's just about the creation of a crack to initiate stress relief.

you're missing the analogy. the surface area of the sail is the entire volume of eg piezoelectrically responsive rocks - so it's a gigantic sail

>The earth is a sphere. A sphere made of solid rock [...]

The earth is NOT a solid rock. It's a very thin layer of rock, floating on top of a pool of magma, itself floating in space. The rock itself flows on all sorts of time scales as well.

A sphere will be forced by the wind, almost the same amount as any other object, regardless of its density or weight.

> It's a very thin layer of rock, floating on top of a pool of magma

it's not a pool of magma, the mantle is basically solid

(except on very large timescales)