Are you suggesting capturing the energy of the earthquake?

That's literally what he said, yes.

He did imply it would likely not be possible. He said that if it could be captured, it would be an absolutely mind-boggling ROI in terms of energy in vs energy out.

But how renewable/reliable would it be? A few years of quaking, and we'd hit peak quake energy. All down hill from there.

That seems like it would be a feature, lots of free energy and no more earthquakes killing people, destroying infrastructure (which must cause massive amounts of pollution), etc.

Or all the continental plates have shattered into a billion pieces and molten rock is bubbling up through the innumerable fractures.

Moot point-- it's not possible currently.

However, think of the sheer amount of potential energy cause by plate tectonics... we're talking about continents... moving.

I mean, if you want to be technical about it, it would definitely not be downhill from there because all the hills would be gone.