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A SWISS court has acquitted the ceo of a geothermal energy company accused of damaging property after his project’s deep drilling caused earthquakes that shook buildings around Basel.

Geologist Markus Häring, ceo of Geothemal Explorers was acquitted because the court says his $60m project had not deliberately set out to cause damage. The Basel project involved fracturing the local bedrock to access the earth’s deep heat – water was to be pumped as far as three miles down but any hopes that the project could continue ended last week when a report found operations could cause as much as $0.5b worth of damage to local buildings. The project had been put on hold in 2006 after drilling caused a 3.4 magnitude earthquake and $9m worth of damage to local property.

“We don't get innovation for free, we have to work it out,” Häring said in a statement. “The tremors we caused are a strong setback for deep geothermal energy.”

In California another deep geothermal project was cancelled shortly after the report on the Basel incident was released. The two failures are expected to cast caution over similar projects in the future but they are not expected to signal the end of geothermal efforts in general as in many places fluid flow and rock porosity is naturally adequate enough so bedrock does not have to be tampered with.

Locally, engineers in Switzerland are continuing work in less earthquake-prone regions – preliminary drilling has begun in Zurich and plans are in place to begin drilling in St Gallen, in eastern Switzerland next year.

Further afield, geothermal projects have been approved in the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, and the UK.