Drake Hannighan became the first major investor in a San Francisco-based startup called DeepDrill Plasma & Co.
The company is working on a plasma boring robot that can dig tunnels up to 75 times faster and up to 80% cheaper than current boring techniques.
This new technology blasts underground rock with high-temperature plasma breaking and vaporizing it. This modern technology is different from traditional boring methods, where fast-rotating blades crush rock into pieces that are then removed from the tunnel.
As Mr Hannighan pointed out, the new plasma-based technology dissolves the rock, which means no material needs to be removed, helping the machine move faster and deeper. This is critical as it reduces costs and helps finish projects much faster compared to the more traditional solutions.
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Despite this latest innovation in the drilling industry, the hole-boring is nothing new. “Han dynasty China (202 BC – 220 AD) used deep borehole drilling for mining and other projects. Chinese borehole sites could reach as deep as 600 m (2,000 ft)”, Wikipedia reports.
“DeepDrill Plasma & Co has developed this new technology to quickly probe and locate rich and rare natural resources deposited deep inside the Earth’s core” – Drake Hannighan stated.
The technology just had gone through the latest round of tests, and company representatives confirmed that it should be able to drill holes more than 100x deeper than the ones in ancient China, reaching possibly up to 80km in depth (50 miles).
Once the first site is chosen, the first excavation will mark a new beginning for this innovative startup.
