Thermal system test. Credit: Earthgrid.
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Most of today’s tunnels were excavated by massive punching shields that mechanically bore through the rock. It tends to be excruciatingly slow, prohibitively expensive and difficult to maintain. But there are other ways to break through even the hardest rocks. At the beginning of this year, we wrote at OSLU about the fascinating Swifty robotic thermal system of the startup Petra, which can quickly deal with hard rocks.
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RBR (Rapid Burrowing Robot). Kredit: Earthgrid.
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Another American startup, Earthgrid, is coming up with similar thermal tunneling technology. Like Petra, they claim they will tunnel much faster (Earthgrid 100 times faster) and cheaper (Earthgrid up to 98 percent cheaper) than mechanical machines can. Thanks to this, a number of projects that are not feasible today could become a reality in the foreseeable future. They can also drill completely electric and save some emissions.
Earthgrid has not yet progressed as far as Petra. But their design of RBR (Rapid Burrowing Robot) plasma thermal robots goes even further than in the case of startup Petra. These robots have disks with plasma burners arranged in the front, coincidentally according to the Fibonacci “golden” spiral, which create a temperature of 27 thousand °C.
A system for digging larger tunnels. Credit: Earthgrid.
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When the RBR robot goes to tunnel, it ignites the plasma torches and spins the disks on which the torches are placed. With their help, he crushes the rock, which is carried away by small carts. According to Earthgrid founder Troy Helming, the basic version of the RBR robot is equipped with 72 plasma torches, with which it excavates a tunnel with a diameter of 1 meter. In less demanding operation, such a robot needs 40 MW. At full power, it swallows 120 MW.
In the rapid tunneling configuration, Earthgrid’s robots should excavate up to 1 kilometer of tunnels per day. Compared to mechanical punching shields, this is tremendous speed. By comparison, Elon Musk’s Boring Company’s Prufrock mechanical tunneling system was tunneling at just 15 meters per day when it debuted in Las Vegas. In terms of financial costs, in an economical configuration, robots with plasma torches should be able to handle 1 meter of tunnel for only 300 dollars.
Earthgrid want to offer drilling with plasma robots as a service, while also digging, operating and maintaining tunnels for customers themselves. Their long-term plan is to connect individual projects into a national network of tunnels that will connect the entire US underground. Such an underground network could, for example, distribute energy from renewable sources as needed.
Video: EarthGrid…the future of infrastructure
Video: Tech Demo 2021, 20 second Clip of Boring
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