The potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the production of energy contained in hot dry rock (HDR) is surveyed here. In general, careful siting and timing and routine control measures should be adequate to prevent significant environmental harm; sites of particular ecological or visual and recreational value, however, may require more extensive (and more expensive) precautions such as using multiwell pads to reduce land disturbance and dry or wet and dry cooling towers to reduce or eliminate the consumptive use of water. The most important uncertainty among the environmental concerns is the seismic response of HDR formations to short-duration fluid injections at pressures above fracture thresholds; continued monitoring at HDR development sites is necessary. The direct socioeconomic impacts of HDR development should be relatively minor, owing to its capital-intensive nature. Of greater potential importance are the indirect jobs resulting from such development, which could cause significant demographic (and thus fiscal and social) impacts in sparsely populated regions. However, such indirect growth is not expected to begin until a large, stable HDR industry is established in a region, and thus its impacts are expected to be permanent rather than transient.