Hi Cathryn:

(don't laugh)?! ROFL, LOL,...:-)

OK...just kidding.

You appear to be intuitively wandering into the realm of "Earthquake Prevention and Control".
Lots of times, all you need is the seed of an idea to get something on it's way to working.

This general idea (of pre-empting quakes) was found in an article posted (by Don I think). The article addressed using electrode discharging in an area in order to reduce the liklihood of a larger quake. Data was analyzed suggesting a reduction of smaller quakes in the local area.
No lubricant injection was considered (and other data suggests this may trigger microq's). I believe the authors where Russian or maybe Chinese....

* * *
Here are a few thoughts on some (legal) considerations (ref: Lubricant Injection):

1) Though earthquakes are considered inherently unpredictable and the (Plate Tectonics (PT)) model for earthquakes is accepted as "known science" there still exists a knowledge gap (in view of the heat/stress paradoxes).

If the PT model is "fuzzy" and can't explain key parts of what is happening (or it is {falsely} believed that PT has sufficiently explained earthquake processes) then the expected outcome (of reducing the risk) is Implied but still not assured (OK...so maybe this is a legal point).

Anyway, just like arguments about tapping water from streams and rivers, a neighbor down the road will argue that (presuming an injected lubricant works) you have freed up the locks in your region of the fault but have now shifted the stress to your neighbor down the road (who may sue you if he thinks this is so and a quake wrecks his house, etc.)

2) A dam construction project was delayed for years I believe as they miscalculated how much concrete it would take to shore up the underground area around the dam foundation. They located some cave-like holes in the area and figured if they pumped enough concrete into it that eventually all the leaky water pathways would get filled. What they did not know was the huge size of the underground "caves" which they had to essentially fill up. So practically speaking, the actual injection process could conceivably require a huge amount of lubricant (perhaps the size of a (stressed) municipal water supply) and from this standpoint could be considered costly and having an uncertain outcome.

Based on these two points, it gets real quagmir-ish fast (especially if you can't explain the no heat/stress/deep paradoxes).

* * *
To understand whether electrode discharging will reduce the liklihood of a larger quake will require analyzing data over a longer period of time in a generally active area (where water injection is not common).

Some will say that "Time will tell" whereas others will say that the jury is already back in on that topic. I'll defer to others at this point...:)

GUPOTFAL (Getting Up Off the Floor After Laughing)
:-)