Tidal dissipation is also a very interesting subject, but the energies involved are lower (about 2.8 TW) and concentrated near the surface of the earth where th

Tidal dissipation is also a very interesting subject, but the energies involved are lower (about 2.8 TW) and concentrated near the surface of the earth where the heat is lost really fast. It might be resolved now, but for a while there was a bit of a mystery where tidal dissipation as estimated by the recession rate of the moon (as measured by bouncing lasers off a corner reflector left by the apollo astronauts) was significantly larger than we could account for by modelling oceanic and solid-earth tides. There's also the issue that if you extrapolate the recession rate of the moon at the present rate, it ends up within the Roche limit less than 2 billion years ago. That's not necessarily catastrophic since solid bodies have cohesion (the ISS is well within the Roche limit, for instance). Nonetheless, it's likely that tidal dissipation is higher now than it was for much of Earth history. This paper may be paywalled but is a pretty recent take ont he subject: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2016.12.038 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2016.12.038 While Earth is a bit unique within the solar system in having a (relatively) really huge moon, the reason Earth has plate tectonics and Venus doesn't is generally thought to have more to do with a proposed mutual dependence of liquid water and plate tectonics (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1029/GL010i011p01061 https://doi.org/10.1029/GL010i011p01061), since Venus accreted more volatile-depleted than the earth. So while Venus has no shortage of what would be considered young volcanic activity by geologic standards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanism_on_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanism_on_Venus), its crust is stuck in place (a "stagnant lid"). The fact that Earth is a little bit bigger probably doesn't hurt either.