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by sterl 3987 days ago
This idea is fantastic. However, we can do one better. We can control the quake such that we use a sequence of low energy quakes distributed across many years to eliminate the need for the large quick entirely.
2 comments

We can even do better than that and harvest the potential energy stored, rather than simply dissipating it as heat and motion. How to do this is left as an exercise to the reader.
> How to do this is left as an exercise to the reader.

For some reason I am picturing this cartoon:

http://star.psy.ohio-state.edu/coglab/Pictures/miracle.gif

If only you had ~80,000 years of 5.0 earthquakes every month to dissipate one 9.0 earthquake's energy.