"We're being taken for a ride!": In Alsace, mini-earthquakes linked to a geothermal power plant are worrying residents

It's impossible to miss the impressive installation of the company Lithium de France in the town of Betschdorf, in the Bas-Rhin department of Alsace: in the middle of the fields, a 51-meter-high metal drilling tower has been erected.

Once the installation is ready, by injecting cold water deep underground, the company will be able to recover it at 150 degrees Celsius at the surface, and thus supply heat networks.

The company also plans to exploit lithium dissolved in water to extract 1,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent annually, which serves as a raw material for manufacturing electric batteries. This activity is of great interest to the government, which sent Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to the site in early February to promote this technology, which would reduce France's dependence on gas and lithium imports. The Alsatian subsoil is particularly well-suited to geothermal energy production, as hot water is present at shallower depths than elsewhere, Julie Maury, a geologist at the French Geological Survey (BRGM), explained to AFP. A tremor of magnitude 3.9 on the Richter scale. However, on the downside, drilling can more easily cause earthquakes. And these tremors, which generally occur closer to the surface than natural earthquakes, are felt more strongly at the same magnitude, she explained. The strongest geothermal-related tremor in the region measured 3.9 on the Richter scale in June 2021, in La Wantzenau near Strasbourg. The drilling that caused this earthquake had already been abruptly halted a few months earlier. And more recently, other projects have been put on hold in northern Alsace, where most of the facilities are concentrated. Lithium de France thus abandoned a drilling project in Soufflenheim in June 2025, and a geothermal power plant operated by Électricité de Strasbourg in Rittershoffen was shut down by prefectural order in December 2025. Noise, odor, and light pollution, dangers to the forest... Local residents oppose the project. Consequently, locally, the development of these projects is generating opposition. "We're against it because of the risks," worries Joël Rang, who lives in a housing development a few hundred meters from the Lithium de France site. "I feel much more concerned looking out my window at the drilling rig!" adds this software developer. "The population is very sensitive to earthquakes. When you feel that in your bed, it's quite worrying," agrees Muriel Manière, spokesperson for a group of opponents, who lives in a nearby village. Noise, odor, and light pollution, dangers to the forest, to World War II memorial sites... she is inexhaustible on the risks attributed to this activity. "We're rural people, we don't have any doctors anymore, and they're foisting energy-producing industries on us that we won't even use, since it's for the big cities. We're the ones being taken for a ride!" she summarizes. "Ensuring maximum safety regarding this seismic issue" District heating networks, which are too expensive to deploy in rural areas, could instead supply the town of Haguenau, with its 35,000 inhabitants, located about ten kilometers away. The heat extracted from a site could potentially heat 20,000 homes, estimates Lithium de France, which at this stage, however, is considering supplying industrial zones rather than private individuals. "We couldn't operate without demonstrating our ability to manage these risks," reassures Pierre Brossollet, CEO of Arverne, the group that owns the company. For him, "the techniques used" and "working in close coordination and cooperation with government services should guarantee maximum safety regarding this seismic issue."Any tremor exceeding a certain threshold would automatically halt drilling operations, with resumption only authorized by the prefecture. "The operator has a responsibility to understand that they are an integral part of the local area," explains François Werner, a regional councilor (New Centre) in charge of energy. Because "the extraction of resources from the subsoil... in everyone's subconscious, it resonates."