EarthGrid use PyroGenesis plasma torches
@helloween @Tanazaki you must read this it you think Earthgrid is a microcap in its infancy. They aren't :
Investor FAQ
About EarthGrid PBC
EarthGrid is a private American company that was established in 2016. EarthGrid has developed proprietary, ground-breaking plasma tunnel-boring technology that can revolutionize the grid infrastructure in the U.S. and is poised to greatly increase the capacity to transmit electricity across the country to power America’s clean energy transition.
In addition to greatly expanding electricity capacity, the project will also enhance the safety, security and reliability of grid infrastructure, housing critical infrastructure underground to avoid natural disasters that have repeatedly devastated grid operations and caused crippling power outages across the country.
What Traction has the company achieved?
2017 - Completed 1st prototype
2017 - Feasibility Study completed by Pyrogenesis
2017 - Filed 1st patent application
2018 - 1st patent sold to Petra (fka ArcByt)
2018 - significant plasma tunnel testing on multiple rock geology types: granite, greywacke, limestone, sandstone, soil, concrete, basalt, etc.
2018 - R&D completed on several major subsystems:
spoils removal,
thermal management,
sensors,
propulsion
2019 - 1st patent approved with [21] claims
2021 - 1st state, California, awards EarthGrid utility status with a CPCN (Certificate of Public Convenience & Necessity)
2021 - additional subsystems R&D and rock testing
2021 - worked out an arrangement with Petra to get the 1st patent back on a royalty-free, perpetual basis
2021 - filed 2 more patents (4 total)
2021 - surpassed $9 Million capital raised (nearly all of it from Troy Helming’s family office)
2022 - completed first commercial BOOMTM project (BOOMTM = Build, Own, Operate & Maintain): a small pilot project in Richmond CA containing industrial power (480vac), Broadband fiber, water & sewer lines serving ~10 customers at an industrial park. Customers include Caterpillar, Federal Pavers, Urban Services, Yzzo Studios, Pristine Sun, Sustainable Solar Corp, several welding contractors, Norcal Demolition, etc.
2022 - reached a total of 26 state CPCN approvals
2022 - Customer traction:
10 LOIs signed
4 contracts signed (with Solarenewal LLC, a solar developer owned by New Island Capital)
2022 - oversubscribed Pre-Seed 1: $2M at $20M Pre-money. Raised $2.5M in ~1 month.
2022 - additional subsystems R&D and rock testing
2022 - 3rd patent published (64 claims total) in the USA and other countries
August 2022 - oversubscribed Pre-Seed 2 (raised > $5 Million) at $30 M Pre-money valuation.
2023 - filed 4th patent on plasma trenching
Jan 2023 - Completed manufacturing of our MVP (Minimum Viable Product) the Plasma Excavation System s/n 101 (“PES”).
Feb 2023 - EarthGrid wins 2022’s “Most Fundable Company” platinum award from Pepperdine University. Over 4,000 companies applied. This is a big honor. Due diligence from Pepperdine is in our data room.
March 2023 - Obtained approval as a utility company in our 30th state (see list below and in our data room for copies of state certificates awarded).
Note: each state CPCN awarded is worth $3-5M per state, suggesting that EarthGrid’s value should include $90M to $150M for the CPCNs.
March 2023 - signed a preliminary multi-billion dollar joint venture deal with an institutional investor. We hope to close the JV in 2H 2023. This demonstrates how attractive our company can be to investors.
March 2023 - hired new CTO Jeff Dzado and he began building his engineering team with 3 new hires.
April 2023 - Upgraded PTS to make it mobile: containerized the balance of plant (BOP) and purchased a heavy-duty dual axle trailer for the Caterpillar 313 excavator-based PTS.
April 2023 - earned first significant revenue with PTS (>$100,000)
April 2023 - Tested trenching in the field for the 1st time: greywacke rock (very hard rock), soil, clay, Bay mud, etc.
May 2023 - organized trade secret library (IP that we’ll not patent) with a total of >1,200 trade secrets
May 2023 - confirmed with 9 counties in Texas and 2 counties in California that our CPCN does in fact give us access to public road rights-of-way with a non-discretionary permit.
June 2023 - surpassed $5M capital raised in Seed Round at $60M Pre-money.
July 2023 - IP valuation indication received from Aon, indicating IP value of $100 to $ 300 Million+
July 2023 - Received an IP-backed loan offer for $150 Million, terms being negotiated.
July 2023 - Executed engagement letter with Morgan Stanley to underwrite & provide green bonds for one or more of EarthGrid’s tunnel projects in California.
Aug 2023 - oversubscribed our $15 Million Seed round.
Aug 2023 - surpassed $2 Million on NetCapital crowdfunding campaign.
Aug 2023 - final JV agreement drafted, Troy meeting with the institutional investor to close it.
Aug 2023 - paid for (6) additional plasma torches, power supplies, balance of plant (arrival late 2023).
Aug 2023 - received a signed contract from the US Air Force (work to be paid for via SBIR grant).
August 2023 - Purchase Order received from the largest construction company in Canada for a paid pilot.
Aug 2023 - received preliminary approval from grid operator in Texas (ERCOT) to connect 1 GW (1st time in USA that an interconnection this large was approved). Filed interconnection in CA for another T-line.
Aug 2023 - Broke our continuous runtime record (3 hours) with new air-cooled water chiller for the PTS.
Sep 2023 - oversubscribed our $15M Seed round by 2x. It closed 9/2 with ~30M raised including our NetCapital crowdfunding raise ($3.3M, closed 8/31).
This brings the total equity to ~$50 Million raised since inception.
Sep 2023 - closed the JV. Wow. [Keep this confidential]
Sep 2023 - submitted $759 Million loan guarantee application to the U.S. Department of Energy’s LPO (Loan Program Office), for initial review.
Jan 2024 - submitted $1.25 Billion of grants to the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Deployment Office.
Dec 2023 - Exclusivity in our field of use was contractually locked up with 2 of the 3 global high-temperature, high-power plasma torch manufacturers.
Jan 2024 - filed another patent application, this one for PTS with 20 claims, increasing our total to 7 patents and 132 claims.
Jan 2024 - submitted an electric utility interconnection application at two additional substations:
Big Hill, Texas for 500 MW from solar farms in development in the region
Sacramento, CA for 425 MW from solar farms in development in the region
Jan 2024 - received a signed Comfort Letter from a multi-billion dollar company affiliated with our JV partner, to provide to lenders to loan EarthGrid the funds for our capital contribution to the JV. We had been waiting for five months (since Sep ‘23) for this comfort letter. This is a big milestone for us.
Jan 2024 - Started boring our first 2.5-meter diameter tunnel.
Location: Point Molate, California
Rock type: Greywacke, 7 on the Moh hardness scale (harder than granite)
Equipment used: Plasma Trenching System, serial number 101
Number of torches: 1
Progress as of 1/31/2024: 25 cubic meters removed in 25 hours of operation (1 cubic meter per hour per plasma torch)
Depth: 3 meters (~11’)
Width: 2 meters
Height: 2.5 meters
Conclusion: now that we’ve proven we can bore tunnels with one torch, imagine what we can do with 21 torches on a TBR.
Feb 2024 - tested our industrial mining vacuum on the magma coming out of the 2.5-meter diameter tunnel in Point Molate, CA. Made several modifications to the system, and continue to see expected results of being able to remove large volumes of gravel-sized hot rock bits.
Feb 2024 - tested a different plasma torch from a new supplier, for the 1st time. This torch is designed to optimize rock destruction. Results: operating at 0.5 MW (less than half the power of our 1.2 MW torch), it was about 20-30% less effective than the other torch.
In other words, 41%+ more efficient (58% lower power, 70-80% prior ROP average = 41-46%).
Oct 2023 - Internal approval of the 2.5 m diameter TBR v0 Concept of Operations
Nov 2023 - Began design work in earnest for the first steps of TBR v0, a Dev TBR with 3 phases: Nibbler - Phase 0, Gobbler - Phase 1, Phase 2 (TBD name)
Dec 2023 - Ordered long lead equipment for Dev TBR, water pumps, 500 ton air cooled water chiller
Dec 2023 - Approved Dev TBR Nibbler torch mount rig concept design
Jan 2024 - Ordered long lead equipment for Dev TBR, heat exchanger, 2000 kVA transformer, torch gas air supply equipment,
Feb 2024 - Ordered Dev TBR equipment, 15 kV switchgear, 480V distribution panels, 2nd heat exchanger, equipment mobility trailers
Feb 2024 - Began procurement and build of Dev TBR Nibbler torch mount rig
Jan 2024 - Began CFD modeling of single high power plasma torches
Feb 2024 - Extended CFD modeling for multi-torch systems for guiding Dev TBR designs
Jan 2024 - 3D scanner procured for measuring rock destruction volumes, more formal processes in place for tracking rock destruction progress.
Jan 2024 - made significant progress on the (3) grid interconnection applications to connect EarthGrid’s private transmission line network to three locations on the grid (2 in Texas, and 1 in California), totaling nearly 2 GW (2,000 MW). 1,000 MW in central Texas, 500 MW in southwest Texas, and 450 MW in northern California.
Feb 2024 - Received specialty geology identification equipment and began building our library of 15+ different geologies we’ve tested during 2023.
Mar 2024 - FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) staff and attorneys, working with EarthGrid’s Board Advisor Curt Hebert (former Chairman of FERC), provided an official opinion that EarthGrid’s “gen-tie” tunnel line from a solar farm near Wendel, California to a data center near Reno, Nevada is not subject to FERC jurisdiction. This is due to it being a retail (not wholesale) project connecting privately-owned substations at the solar farm and the data center. This is really big news, and validates the EarthGrid business model. This project now only needs to get state rights of way in CA & NV to complete the permitting and rights of way milestones (see below).
Mar 2024 - we received written confirmation in California and Texas that EarthGrid’s telecommunications utility status (via CPCN) provides non-discretionary ability to obtain rights of way along the county roads without a discretionary public comment period, and with a standard engineering design to get final approval of the longitudinal permits.
Mar 2024 - most of the equipment has arrived to manufacture our 6-torch tunnel boring robot (v0). We expect the final equipment to arrive in April/May. We’ll start testing shortly thereafter. This is very exciting, because - to our knowledge - no person or company has ever tested multiple plasma torches on rock simultaneously. Our torch spacing, speed, and torch synergy data sets will be refined as part of the testing.
Mar 2024 - we’re nearing the completion of PES 102 (Plasma Excavation System version 102), which is a 2-torch system that can perform excavation of any geology (hard rock, soft rock, soil & sand, etc.).
Mar 2024 - a total of four (4) customer contracts are pending thanks to our biz dev team, including tolling agreements (charging per megawatt-hour of $7k and $10k per month, and data Mbps at $50k+ per month) and a large power purchase agreement (over $1 Million per month).
Apr 2024 - Petra/Arcbyt is winding down its operations. On April 3, 2024, EarthGrid purchased Petra/Arcbyt’s patents that relate to Earthgrid’s patents for $250,000. The transfer of the patents to EarthGrid (from Petra/Arcbyt) was recorded with the U.S.P.T.O. on April 5, 2024. In the near future, EarthGrid may also have the opportunity to purchase some or all of Petra's equipment for a discount, and the opportunity to evaluate laid-off employees and hire the most qualified. EarthGrid hired their lead mechanical engineer.
May 2024 - numerous milestones on IP: acceptance of various patents and trademarks in more countries.
May 2024 - tested 2-torch PES for the first time & began troubleshooting issues & improving reliability.
May 2024 - tested the 2-torch PES on granite, limestone, and numerous other geologies. The synergy of two torches is substantial.
June 2024 - EarthGrid’s “Granite Cornflakes” video won the 1st place prize of $500 from the prestigious Underground Construction Association (UCA), the sponsors of the annual North American Tunneling (NAT) conference, the largest tunneling conference in N.A. The photo we submitted (same as the image above) won honorable mention. Many thanks to Fanis Korompokis for the filming, idea, and submission!
June 2024 - EarthGrid’s most significant known unknown of its technology has always been: what is the ‘synergy effect’ of more than one torch? In other words, does 1 torch + 1 torch = 2, 2.2, or up to 2.5x the effect of a single torch? Preliminary data from two weeks of testing with two torches, in identical rock type (we get multiple huge boulders from rock quarries on which to run multiple tests), shows that the answer to this question is:
From 2.8x to likely > 3x !! So, 1 + 1 = 2.8+ We like that math.
This is big news, because it means we can bore a larger tunnel with the same number of torches (and the same amount of energy), OR we can bore the target diameter with less energy required and lower Capex (fewer torches and related balance of plant).
Our founder Troy Helming has been waiting for over seven years to find out this answer (since 2016).
What is the biggest risk to the business model of owning your own tunnels for utilities or transportation?
Obtaining Rights Of Way (“ROW”) for our tunnels. Construction, project development (including regulatory & permitting), capital, political, competitor, and technology risk are all manageable.
How do you intend to mitigate your biggest risk?
In 2018 our founder Troy Helming, along with Advisory Board member Rachelle Chong, discovered a clever solution to solving the ROW risk. By registering EarthGrid as a utility in any given state, and obtaining what is called a Certificate of Public Convenience & Necessity (“CPCN”), the company gains preferred (near-guaranteed) ROW along state & county roads for underground conduits, utility lines, etc. State departments of transportation (DOT, Caltrans, etc.) must grant ROW access to companies with a CPCN for utility lines, as long as such applications for ROW do not unreasonably interfere with the operation of the affected or adjacent transportation corridor. [state CPCN list last updated August 4, 2022]
States and dates that EarthGrid has filed for CPCN utility approvals:
23-Sep-16 Delaware
17-Sep-20 California - Granted
24-May-21 Idaho - Granted
24-May-21 Nevada - Granted
24-May-21 Utah - Granted
4-Jun-21 Wyoming - Granted
27-May-21 Nebraska - Granted
9-Dec-21 Arizona - Granted
8-Dec-21 Iowa - Granted
27-Dec-21 Illinois - Granted
8-Dec-21 Indiana - Granted
8-Dec-21 Massachusetts - Granted
8-Dec-21 New Jersey - Granted
In Process New Mexico
8-Dec-21 New York - Granted
8-Dec-21 Ohio - Granted
In Process Pennsylvania
8-Dec-21 Texas - Granted
8-Dec-21 Vermont - Granted
15-Dec-21 Louisiana - Granted
29-Dec-21 Alabama - Granted
Florida - Granted
Washington - Granted
Oregon - Granted
Massachusetts - Granted
Colorado & Wisconsin granted
Vermont, South Carolina, North Carolina, Vermont, Arizona & Georgia granted.
Sep 2023 - Michigan, Maine granted
Oct 2023 - Mississipp, Kentucky, New Hampshirei & Rhode Island granted
Nov 2023 - Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana approved
Jan 2023 - Connecticut
Feb 2023 - West Virginia, Tennessee, South Dakota
46 states total as of May 2024, representing ~97% of US GDP & population
What are other risks and your mitigation strategies?
Technology, competition.
Technology risk mitigation:
Build & test sub-systems: spoils removal, propulsion, navigation, guidance, plasma BOP (power supply, gas supply, cooling systems), plasma torch damage mitigation “down-hole”, umbilical management, etc.
Reduce moving parts wherever possible.
Use ‘off-the-shelf’ techniques or technologies where possible & appropriate. Proprietary advances in subsystems can be developed later, after the company is generating revenue with test tunnels using a simplified TBR (Tunnel Boring Robot).
Competitor risk mitigation:
Keep key IP confidential as trade secrets (don’t file for patents on that information).
Be early (first?) to market.
Get ROW along key routes. Once ROW is obtained on a given route (e.g. point A to point B), there would be no financial incentive for any other party to also attempt to solve the utility problems along that route. For example, a route that solves electric grid congestion (due to inadequate transmission line capacity) and/or insufficient fiber for data (e.g. “missing middle mile” connection from a community to the fiber backbone), once that problem is solved the financial incentive for another power line or fiber line disappears, since EarthGrid would have captured those financial benefits by obtaining the ROW and building the line first.
Complete projects faster. Since it can take years (up to 15) for overhead transmission lines to obtain their many approvals, and construction can also take up to 2-3 years (due to the complicated dynamically loaded foundations required for large pylon towers), EarthGrid may be able to beat competitors to the finish line by quickly obtaining ROW and boring our tunnel rapidly: 1 km/day = 365 km or ~225 miles per year, per robot. With 2-4 robots, a 225-mile tunnel route could be completed in 3-6 months after ROW is finalized with the state DOT. This could circumvent years, and billions of dollars of net present value, for projects where we can beat the traditional incumbents (large utility companies doing things “the old way”).
Our founder has come up with another clever idea to accomplish the above (faster completion of projects) in a way that would surprise incumbents by completing the project before they know it’s coming (staying in “stealth mode” for the specific projects as long as possible). More on that concept is available upon request.
Who are your competitors?
Petra. Petra shut down in May 2024. EarthGrid purchased the three patents that were being shared with Petra (EarthGrid now owns them outright), bought their used equipment, and has interviewed some of their former employees, and hired at least one of their former employees as of June 2024. Our founder Troy Helming was an early employee & co-founder of Petra (fka ArcByt Inc.) in 2018 with Kim Abrams Lembo. Their business, and the patents sold by EarthGrid to ArcByt/Petra in 2018, is focused on short, small diameter micro tunnels using a non-plasma fossil-fuel steam process that has one steam spraying arm that articulates (a slower and more expensive process). We don’t see their model as really solving the big problems but we do appreciate their validation of the tech.
The Boring Company (conventional TBM but upgraded to all-electric w some robotics). See below for more. TBM reached out to EarthGrid in early 2024 for a proposal to help with both hard rock tunneling and permitting and entitlement support and assistance.
Foro Energy (laser drilling). Foro struggled with putting sensitive laser equipment underground too far away from the surface. It is unclear whether Foro is still in business or defunct.
Hypersciences: how do you compare your company to them? They use high-velocity projectiles to soften the ground, then excavate mechanically. While it’s an improvement over conventional tech, they will still be slower, more complicated (a lot can go wrong), and more expensive than our non-contact, non-mechanical method.
What boring technique does Elon Musk's The Boring Company (TBC) uses now?
Answer 1: Originally, a traditional TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) that they bought used, and modified to switch from diesel powered to electric and modified its subsystems to be electric rather than hydraulic (where possible) to improve efficiency, energy budget and reduce downtime for maintenance. They developed and built their second TBM “Prufrock” which completed the LVCC in 2021. The LVCC was 1.7 miles long and took over 1 year to complete. Currently they are presenting the second and improved “Prufrock” which after review in Texas soils, was able to bore at about 1 mile per week. These are solid incremental improvements, and on their own, would radically change the speed of tunneling in the correct soil conditions. They are, however, limited by soils, rock, permitting, etc. One key improvement for the new Prufrock is their ability to begin at an angle on the surface. This eliminates the expensive and time consuming pit excavation that is required for most TBM’s.
Answer 2: another key advantage of the TBC is their business model. Rather than boring a tunnel where they are paid by a municipality (e.g. the City of Las Vegas) in a bid, they are often trying to own the tunnel, bore it at their own cost (assuming all the construction & financing risk), and charging fees to users to recover their costs plus a margin. This business model is radical (for the tunneling industry) since it cuts out vast amounts of cost markups from the many traditional expensive construction companies (with union labor, inefficient project management & construction practices, etc.) who bid on such projects, then hit the owner (municipalities) with hefty change orders and post-completion litigation to recover more costs to pad their profit margins.
See CNN’s contributor’s perspective here: https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/08/11/nightcap-elon-musk-boring-company-clip-orig.cnn?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Fortune, here:
https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-tunnels-former-employee-interviews/, and
https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/flirted-death-elon-musk-boring-company-employees-injuries-osha-citations/
Yahoo: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trouble-below-elon-musk-boring-100000873.html
Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-26/elon-musk-las-vegas-loop-tunnel-has-construction-safety-issues
What are they (TBC) planning in the future?
Answer: More of the same. Smaller diameter tunnels (~4-5m) to increase speed by reducing both the quantity of ground control and the volume of material to be removed (the slowest parts of traditional large diameter tunneling). Their publicly stated goal is to someday be able to bore at 7 miles per day, but this has been met with much skepticism due to traditional boring physics limitations.
The Boring Co is digging city tunnels already (e.g. Las Vegas), why wait before getting into that market? What are the limiting factors?
Answer: We can go to market providing boring as a service for up to 8m diameter tunnels within 18-24 months of having the capital to order the equipment needed to build the machine. If we can achieve the rates of penetration that we think we can with our robot, then we’ll have hundreds of km of tunnels bored before Elon and other companies realize what happened.
Most of the sub-systems won't change much for our various models, so the primary engineering needs for larger robots are electrical, power supply, manifold (for air & water supply), and vacuum removal (larger diameters mean more volume to remove; ~ geometric by Pi)
What is the environmental impact of your tunnels?
Answer: Huge positive impact; minimal negative impact.
Unlike HDD (Horizontal Directional Drilling), we don’t use drilling mud (additives, chemicals, etc.) to assist our process. Our only (2) inputs are: electricity & air. Our process is non-toxic & benign.
"There are a lot of complexities behind optimizing tunnel boring projects, but overall there is a simple recipe for ensuring that TBM machines are working efficiently and water consumption is minimized; choosing the right products and using them as they were intended. Normet is dedicated to driving innovative technology and sustainability in the mining industry, and with a combination of its continuous research and development to improve products, along with its onsite assistance, Normet helps customers to optimize their TBM projects. Mining-technology spoke with Robin Swift, Normet’s TBM projects manager, to find out more. “On the R&D side of things, we have to make sure that our products are efficient, but we also understand that using the additive correctly onsite will have a big impact on water consumption,” Swift explains. “It’s all well and good having a really good product, but if they’re not using it as intended to really optimize the performance and versatility of the soil conditioning system, then it becomes a price battle for us, and that’s not good for anyone. Entering a price competition just drives market rates down.” To help customers get the most of these products, Normet offers onsite support. Ensuring efficiency includes everything from making sure that the working chamber is filled properly to modifying soil conditions with water so that foam additives react better. Normet’s research and development team recently updated its soil conditioner range, which further reduces TBM cutterhead torque, cutterhead tool and screw wear, and improves muck flow characteristics, as well as launching its portfolio of next-generation Tail Sealants. The process for developing a comprehensive range of tail sealants came with a host of challenges, especially as a field that is very specialized for specific applications. According to swift: “Other than the main bearing greases, a lot of these products aren’t following standards for testing because it’s a very niche product line, so a lot of the work we do is developing testing for replicating how the products will work on the machine.” For tail sealant, you have quite a few requirements. It has to be pumpable, it has to be compressible, it needs to be able to create a seal with the wire brushes, it needs to have good anti-washout properties, and it needs to be biodegradable. The issue with this is that if you create a great anti-washout product, the chances are it’s going to have terrible pumpability properties. A lot of what we’re asking for in this product is almost counter intuitive, so it’s like a balancing act to try to get it right.” Tunnel boring projects simply aren’t possible without chemicals, so Normet offers an extensive portfolio of TBM products, including its TamSoil (soil conditioning foams and polymers), TamSeal tail sealants and TamGrease ranges. From development through to assisting with setup and executing the project, Normet supports tunnel boring customers from start to finish. For more information about Normet’s speciality chemicals for TBM tunnelling, or to purchase TBM technology for your site, visit their website."
We prefer to bore deeper, in hard rock, for many reasons, including:
No “critters” live in hard rock, so we only disturb the soil at entrance & exits points of our tunnels, which can be sited on land that is already disturbed soil (and/or zoned commercial/industrial).
The tunnel walls will be stronger, unlike most tunnels which prefer to bore through soft soil, cobble, clay, or soft weathered rock to save money.
Going deeper avoids the “spaghetti” of existing infrastructure that exists close to the surface.
Does it hurt the Earth? Lava tubes and underground water cavities abound throughout the Earth. We simply boring tunnels which are tiny (<0.000001% of the mantle width) relative to the outer shell of the Earth.
No fossil fuels are burned in our process, so there are zero emissions. Our robot is 100% electric.
The amount of acreage in the USA that requires tree removal (e.g. 100’ wide swaths beneath power line) & tree trimming (aka vegetation management) for Electrical transmission lines is huge. When we bury these lines, those trees can be replanted (or grow naturally). Example: the average of two (2) states, GA and OR, is ~165,000 acres per state. Some states have more and many have less.
Assuming 50% of that (a conservative estimate, which does not include distribution lines in many cases) equals 4,125,000 acres that could have been carbon-sequestering forest. If we take the average 4 tons of CO2 sequestration per acre of forest, that equals 16,500,000 tons per year of potential positive environmental impact.
The largest 18 CO2 sequestering projects in 2019, averaged about 2,000,000 tons apiece and cost Billions. We are talking about saving money on electrical grid upgrades and just incidentally capturing 16,500,000 tons of CO2 while replacing it with oxygen.
Earthquakes?
Answer: if you are on the ocean with a massive tidal wave heading your way, would you rather be on a cruise ship or a submarine?
Subway and other tunnel systems in Japan, Mexico and other cities (including San Francisco and Los Angeles) have suffered minimal damage despite powerful earthquakes. The majority of the destructive energy propagates up to the surface and affects structures that are not connected to bedrock.
Who do you believe will be your main competitors in 3-5 years?
Answer: For hardware related to boring of tunnels: Petra (now defunct), The Boring Company, Herrenknecht, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Robbins (we don't expect much innovation from any companies other than TBC).
For developing tunnel projects, we don’t expect much competition other than ArcByt, and their team is limited in their ability to do difficult infrastructure development projects. They can (and most certainly will) add people to their team for this. Direct Connect (developers of the SOO Green project) could be, but I am working on a JV with their CEO Trey Ward to collaborate and share resources (we would provide tunneling on their projects, they would provide HVDC services on our projects).
After we complete several projects and the word gets out about us, surely there will be some companies that will enter the space but they are unknown at this time. Likely wind, solar, and/or conventional overhead powerline developers will enter the underground development space.
What is important to win in this market and how you compare to the competition now and in the future.
Answer: Getting our robots & tunnels in the marketplace quickly gives us 1st mover advantage and it would be hard for others to catch us... due to the speed of our boring and tunnel project development efforts.
The 5+ years Mr. Helming and his team have been accumulating trade secrets will be difficult for newcomers to catch up and master. We’d complete tunnels from potential customers so fast that we could move on to the next tunnel quickly and so on, leaving limited commercial opportunities for our customers if we're already contracted into the "queue" of various key pathways.
Capturing & consuming the economic value of a key pathway (e.g. from point A to point B where there may be an acute need for more transmission capacity to relieve congestion in the grid, or a similar gap in fiber bandwidth) creates a natural competitive moat. Once we have bored a tunnel (quickly and if possible, quietly) from A to B, there would be limited to no economic benefit for a competitor to bore a tunnel along that same route. Then, connecting our tunnel segments naturally leads to network effects, similar to how the US interstate highway system created new wealth by stimulating real estate development along those pathways, our network will capture increased inputs & outputs of commodities that otherwise would not have been created (e.g. community solar farms inputting power to our network, and new charging stations & data centers enjoying outputs of power & bandwidth from our network).
If we raise enough to build larger, more powerful machines quickly enough to get tunnels built, we'll build a significant market share advantage and create a large backlog of customer orders. This will also help us optimize the utilization rate of our machines by coordinating digs within reasonably close proximity to one another (logistical optimization).
Can you describe/map out the value chain in your market? (Who are the players, what's their business model and margin, who has market power and why, how does the money flow, what drives the industry, what are the existing competitive moats, who are the intermediaries)
Answer: Pipeline & tunnel construction in the US is fragmented. There are thousands of construction companies that provide these construction services. The construction supply industry has net margins of 5-8%; the engineering/construction industry has net margins of 2%. They love opportunities to save money.
Business model is simple: either we Build, Own, Operate & Maintain our own tunnels (BOOMTM model), or we provide Boring And Drilling As a Simple Service (BADASSTM model).
BOOMTM: we develop & bore our own tunnels, and lease space out to creditworthy customers on long-term lease contracts of 20-50 years, or we install our own equipment (e.g. fiber optic strands & power lines) and charge tolls (via a Tolling Agreement) on the commodities flowing thru our tunnels. Note: most of our assets will be REIT-eligible assets, suggesting a possible liquidity strategy of taking certain assets public as part of a REIT or multiple REITs.
BADASSTM: infrastructure development companies create project companies for each large infrastructure project. These project companies bid out construction portion of their projects: the civil work, including tunnels, can be 10% or 60% of the project cost. The general contractor (GC) pulls together a bid with subcontractors and gets awarded the project…often based on cost and confidence of on-time completion. We can help them increase their margins and achieve on-time completion if we are boring tunnels as a service for these customers.
There are no competitive moats for construction companies. There are no competitive moats for existing tunnel boring machine companies. There are manufacturers of TBMs who supply the construction industry and tunnel construction companies. They either sell the machines outright (like the Big Bertha machine developed by Hitachi Zosen) and provide maintenance or they provide a service and subcontract to the GC. We want to operate and provide a service, pricing competitively and undercutting the competition on both price and speed.
Key drivers: For investor-owned utilities:
Risk mitigation. PG&E has a multibillion-dollar fund to underground utilities. Duke Energy has committed $350 B to underground power lines in the southeastern USA.
Economics of adding more clean energy sources to the grid and connecting stranded wind/solar resource areas to our cities and load centers.
Other drivers: Biden infrastructure plan, Florida law implemented in 2020 that requires power lines in vulnerable coastal areas to be moved underground, Federal funding for transportation, Local and state government investment, Value of private nonresidential construction, Yield on 10-year Treasury note, economic growth, etc. Examples:
A 2020 study revealed that expanding and modernizing the transmission grid would unleash more than 6 million net new renewable energy and transmission jobs in the Eastern US alone, and predicted similar results in the Western half of the country.
Large-scale transmission, combined with large-scale buildout of renewable energy, is estimated to lead to $100 billion in savings cumulatively, saving a typical household more than $300 per year. Under a national macro grid, over 80 percent of the power system’s electricity can be supplied with renewable energy at a cost equal to or lower than today’s energy costs. Further, transmission makes the electricity market more competitive and increases the market influence of consumers. In 2021 alone, voluntary energy customers contracted for 11.06 GW of clean energy—the equivalent of 40% of all new carbon-free capacity installed that year. [Source: Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, ACEG]
Adequate reforms to transmission policy could unlock access for much of the 1,300 gigawatts (GW) of wind, solar, and energy storage capacity that are waiting in interconnection queues today. This energy would not only benefit communities with cleaner air, energy cost savings, and emissions reductions, but would also improve the reliability of the electric system. Well-planned transmission expansion would allow variable resources, like wind and solar, to move across regions to ensure demand is met in all hours at all locations and make targeted attacks on the grid more difficult to execute. [ACEG]
How can your business change this value chain? (What parts of it are at risk or vulnerable, how does power dynamic change, what do you enable that wasn't possible before, what competitive moat can you build to own the market, what is the new value chain once you are successful?)
Answer: We like the idea of being strategic by completing a job that used to take 200 days in 1 day. When we can build tunnels quickly at lower cost, we can become the most sought-after civil construction services in the world for our BADASSTM model.
We will change the value chain by adding new market opportunities now that underground tunnels are so much less expensive. For example, movement of large quantities of water from flood-prone to drought-prone regions will now be possible, as a brand-new market opportunity. Similarly, large numbers of tunnels for high-speed maglev rail and/or Hyperloop pods will most likely proliferate as a new market opp.
Our competitive moat will be based on
novelty of tech and trade secrets, and
ownership of the tunnels (we get network effects when we own the tunnel network).
We can own the $80B+ tunnel + pipeline construction market with a lower-cost method of doing business. If we start out as subcontractors and graduate to general contractors, we could be one of the largest construction companies in the world if that’s the route we wish to take for our BADASSTM business division. Quanta Services is an $8B construction company. Michels is a $5B construction company. These are two companies that we’d first partner with and then compete with.
Are there ways to accelerate development?
Answer: Yes, we need more capital to buy more hardware to gain the following benefits:
reduces risk in the boring process (higher temps and larger plume will make the tunnel walls stronger with thicker glass and faster annealing).
More torches & power = less movement of the cutting head, fewer mechanical engineering challenges and therefore fewer moving parts to break or maintain.
allows us to offer our customers larger diameter tunnels, sooner.
simultaneously develop the sub-systems for 2-3 models.
Gain some economies of scale on component and 3rd party vendor procurement but also would force our engineering team to be thoughtful about designing these subsystems to work with 2-3 models, shaving off 3-8 months of development time.
With more capital, we can also design & build a better, thinner umbilical. Using superconducting power cables would eliminate the need to solve the electrical engineering challenges of getting a lot of amps into the tunnel over long distances using conventional copper mining cables (with step-down transformers in the tunnel) and would provide additional benefits (thinner & lighter power lines gives us more flexibility with the diameter & weight of the water & air supply lines, for example). Overall time savings to have a 2nd model ready for field work could be 12-18 months.
Note: buying more torches and power supplies is fairly low risk, since there is an existing and active market for this equipment. Those could be resold to 3rd parties in a downside scenario. Most of the capital needed to go fast is not for overhead or people, but for equipment.
You predict 1/10th the cost of traditional boring techniques, do you have a path (or multiple paths) to improving this ratio further?
Answer: Yes. Examples include:
using cheaper, free, and/or negative power from the grid when power prices approach zero or go negative, by scaling up our power consumption during those times and throttling down our power consumption during higher price periods;
building our own dedicated small wind or solar farm once we have robots in the field, and using our own dedicated power plant to power the boring, while selling power to the grid during evening peak times (and slowing or stopping our boring process to capture that peak electric grid pricing benefit) to optimize power market pricing;
redesign the cathode & anode to reduce the need to replace them every ~1,000 hours of boring (replacing them currently will cost $3-8,000/torch);
design our tunnel boring network (for 3rd party customers) so that wherever possible, we connect the end of one tunnel to the beginning of the next tunnel, creating our own private network of tunnels. We'd get permission (sub-lease their tunnel if owned by our customer or give them a discount) so that we can leave our power cable in the tunnel to power the next tunnel and then move power over our own power line(s) within many (or most) of the tunnels we bore. This would reduce costs of mobilizing the power supply each time (a skid-mounted grid connected substation or portable power supply would be avoided), improve our utilization rate (the gopher would just keep going from the end of one tunnel to the beginning of the next, after changing direction as needed), etc.
What could be your most aggressive development roadmap (plasma guns, robot, AI)?
Answer: We'll have to work on this further, but as mentioned we could shave 12-18 months off Model development, by simultaneously developing the subsystems and buying more torches. Note: we have briefly explored the concept of having removable cutting heads on the robots, so that we could quickly change out the disc to modify tunnel diameter but continue to reuse interchangeable torches to keep all torches as fully optimized as possible.
Who are the best researchers or research centers in the world working on technologies who could help with boring (plasma, robots, AI, new boring approaches, etc.)?
Answer: several key suppliers (PSC, Pyrogenesis, others), Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (we're already working with them), Los Alamos National Lab, Idaho National Lab (already working with them), University of Wyoming (already working with them), Colorado School of Mines (already working with them), and University of Berkeley (already working with them).
Can you build research/IP relationships with them?
Answer: Yes, we already are, but would like add Los Alamos
You didn’t ask this but we would like to note that we are also working with retired experts in drilling and tunnel boring industries, included the “father of horizontal directional drilling” and another gentleman who worked on the Los Alamos plasma projects in the 70s.
We talked about redesigning cities and society with more tunnels (underground highways, railroad, new forms of transport, public transport, mining, storage, etc.). Troy mentioned he had decks that describe that future. I'd love to see them and explore how we can fast-forward getting there, assuming you want to.
Answer: Yes, definitely want to. We can get slides & decks to you on these topics as needed.
I'd like more clarity on what your long-term vision is. At the moment you talk about Boring and only refer to owning tunnels in the appendix. Is that your vision, or is your vision to enable a better society with tunnels?
Answer: The latter. That's what drives us: tunnels can change the world. We believe the super grid will be underground and we want to build it. Our tech can bore tunnels faster than anyone else, cheaper than anyone else and in the harshest environments (through the hardest rocks on earth, under the ocean floor, etc). Underground infrastructure is also inherently safer and more impervious to natural disasters (PG&E and Duke Energy both have multi-billion-dollar funds to underground their infrastructure for this exact reason). We want to give society access to super cheap, clean renewable power that is currently stranded / locked in rural areas where no transmission capacity is available to move it in large quantities to our cities. We'll start with under-grounding power lines and then move to transporting water, people and goods once we build out larger diameter boring robots (whether maglev trains, Hyperloop type tech, or something else). Infrastructure tech is stuck in the 70s…it’s a very old industry and it’s ripe for disruption. We think tunnels are the future of transportation infrastructure. With quickly-built and inexpensive tunnels, we can connect cities/countries/continents in an underground grid of tunnels. We joke around about this but we see ourselves as a modern incarnation of the railroad industrialists, a la Vanderbilt, Melon and Morgan.
I know you have IP, but what other competitive moats do you intend to build or could build? Interested in a discussion around your IP/tech roadmap, economies of scale, network effects, business model.
Answer: We’ve mentioned this already, but our competitive positioning is based on:
novelty of tech / IP portfolio and what we don’t put in our IP and disclose to the world (our trade secrets…things like speed through various types of rock, temperature, stand-off distance, airflow rates, current, thermal management, etc.),
ability to own the network of tunnels ourselves,
model of providing a service and operating our machines ourselves (so no one can reverse engineer our tech),
Troy’s relationships with the transmission industry, utility industry and the construction industry (he’s been hiring construction companies to build out 350+ solar and wind farms for the past 30 years).
The key takeaway here is that we achieve network effects when we build and own our tunnels. In the spreadsheet we gave you, please look at the economics of tunnel construction cost tab. If you want, we can walk you through it live.
What do you believe will be your ultimate business model?
Answer: Build, own & operate the world's underground.
Think of EarthGrid like an underground real estate opportunity and a utility opportunity, combined.
What milestones do you think you need to hit to raise a $100M round?
Answer: Get contracts / LOIs for $300MM+ of tunnel jobs, have field tunnels ready to show the world.
How long would it take to permit your own tunnel projects?
Answer: We believe 1-2 years, versus 12-15 years currently. Here is why:
We have already filed to be a utility (with a CPCN as described above) in the key states where we are developing our own tunnel network segments. This process, which can take up to 2 years, is nearly complete in 3 states. Saves 1-2 years.
EarthGrid’s projects are merchant transmission lines, subject to FERC Order 1000, rather than RTO / ISO / IOU projects. No need to rate base the cost. Saves 1-3 years.
Due to the ability to go 100% underground and rarely “come up for air”, we are rarely disturbing soil. This advantage means we are obtaining subsurface rights in existing ROW. EarthGrid prefers soil that has been disturbed and/or where the scope of usage for easements is appropriate and permitting is encouraged. These factors will help us avoid or mitigate the need for lengthy CEQA & NEPA permitting processes. This may avoid (or shorten) public comment periods. Saves 2-8 years.
Tunneling eliminates aesthetic objections to our projects. Saves 1-2 years.
For large portions of our network, we are working with landowners who already have subsurface rights, removing the need to procure such rights. Saves 1-4 years.
Reduced permitting risk = more development capital from investors to ensure project success.
What makes your undergrounding more affordable?
Answer: We are a vertically integrated owner/operator.
Development, permitting & construction are done in-house. This removes substantial “margin stack” inherent in conventional transmission projects where third-party general contractors bid on construction & inflate margins for civil risks (for tunneling unknowns, especially unknown geology), as well as eliminating legal negotiations between the many stakeholders generally involved.
Tunneling avoids the need and expense for towers and foundations, strong core cable to address wind loads and thermal sagging, insulators, clearing forests, wetland mitigation, remote mountaintop construction costs, convoluted routing due to sensitive or populated areas.
Land acquisition, ROW and permitting costs are far lower for sub-surface than above ground.
Traditional tunneling has fixed costs that are 7 to 20 times higher than conventional transmission lines, EarthGrid has solved that problem.
How can we get more information?
Please keep this document Confidential. You may forward it internally within your organization and send this to any of your external advisors who are subject to a confidentiality agreement with you.
Please set up a screen share / conference call with a representative
Does the plasma tunneling create gasses that need to be vented? Gas build up in an enclosed tunnel with a flame could be dangerous... Any data available on that side?
Yes, a portion of the rock & soil vaporizes into gasses that will cool and cause the particles to precipitate (‘rain’) into fine silt-like material and the gas dissipates in the industrial vacuum system that’s removing the spoils (silt & little bits of rock) from the tunnel. If our ‘gas’ input to the plasma torches is air, then NOx is created which is a harmful gas. This is either scrubbed (just like at natural gas plants) at the surface or vented if the venting tube exits to the surface in an uninhabited area. If our gas input to the torches is nitrogen, then zero NOx are created and there would be no harmful gases caused by our input gas. In some cases, there will be mineralogy and/or other gases present in the tunnel (e.g. the worst of which could be hydrogen sulfide). Our sensors (“sniffers”) will detect any such harmful gases being sucked up by our vacuum and pneumatic spoils & gas removal system and send the gases through our scrubbers at the surface before venting the inert, safe remaining air.
The gases coming from the tunnel/trench are extracted by vacuum. The dust, silt, sand, and gravel are collected and separated. The gases are expected to be about 40 degrees C on average, and we expect to vent them from an elevated chimney stack to disperse the air (containing a small % of NOx) into the air. Due to its hot temperature, the vented air/NOx mixture is expected to rise quickly and mix with the air at a high enough elevation to be safe from human breathing and undetectable by ground-based sensors.
How deep are you drilling? How do you prevent the collapse of the tunnel as you are drilling? What is the deepest tunnel earth grid has drilled so far?
Answer; Our template project will be 3 to 30 meters below ground level as an average. The entry point will likely be shallow and we’ll bore at a downward slope to maintain a level tunnel to the extent possible. The undulations of the ground will cause our actual depth (relative to the surface) to vary regularly from 3-5 meters at the most narrow point (typically) to up to 1,000s of meters below the surface if we’re going under a hill or mountain. This is not really a simple answer as there are a lot of considerations to take into account for each segment (a segment is defined as each section of tunnel between an access shaft or slope to the surface). Ideally, we want to go to a depth that will allow us to run in as level and straight of a line as possible until our next area where the TBR will surface. There are several considerations that will go into the tunnel design phase. Ideally, we avoid high-flow aquafers and stay below the state’s DOT limits of road interference calculations. We also want to limit the depth that our vertical shaft needs to be and plan for the most ideal locations for these. This means that no single number can define or limit our depth from the surface.
We chose 10-30 meters as a general point as it is within the bedrock in most terrains and in most cases, below shallow water tables and above deeper water tables. We will adjust as needed by the service and conditions. Note that every 3-4 meters of depth equals a “story” of an office building. So a 30m depth is roughly the equivalent of a 10-story building.
One aspect in the way we "bore" as opposed to traditional drilling is that we do not grind and vibrate as drilling would. This allows the existing lateral and horizontal resistance within subsoils to maintain their cohesion. Eventually though, conditions would eventually erode and potentially cause a collapse without specific engineering to meet the local conditions and this is one aspect of why we prefer bedrock as opposed to soils. In many aspects, depending on the amount of silica in the geology, the plasma energy creates a glassified barrier. In some engineering cases, this is adequate to ensure viability. In these and many other cases, we will utilize a robotic system of spraying shotcrete onto the walls and in cases where specific engineering dictates, we will finish with an engineered surface.
As of April 2024, the deepest for EarthGrid’s:
Tunneling is about 20 meters (64 feet) beneath a hillside in Point Molate, California.
PES (Plasma Excavation System) is one meter (several feet) in a testing area and in a customer project.
How would debris removal work? Is it stored in the tunnel or is the removal manual?
Answer; One of our patents include a vacuum and venturi feed system that carries spallation and debris to outside of the tunnel in which we have a contract in place to purchase the spoils for use in road base. We can also use the spallation in any specific wall finishes as engineering may design.
How far can the robot drill per day versus a standard method of tunneling?
Answer; We use the rate of about 1000 meters per day for general aspects but the actual rate can vary between about 750 meters to 1600 meters, depending on geology and conditions.
Would the robot work underwater? What controls would you put in place?
Answer; Underwater? As completely submerged? No, not without specific engineering changes. Can it work if the TBR encounters unknown water tables in fractured rock? Yes. The additional energy released from the rapid conversion of state in the water can produce irregular surface aspects, but the 6000 C to 20,000 C torch plume temps, in test, have rapidly converted the water and annealed the tunnel surface. This has also been the case in when natural gas and propane gasses were introduced via fractures. The energy released in the plasma is much more energetic than the carbon based gas and the carbon/hydrogen/etc. bonds are rapidly broken.
Where are some hurdles you expect moving forward?
We need to implement several "off the shelf" solutions to manage the TBR and these solutions will be required to operate in 200 c to 300 c conditions for long durations. We also need to develop a quick interconnect of the "umbilical" in which quick additions can be made. Until then, these will require hard stops as the additional lengths are added.
We are also working with a power cable company and the preferred DC power cables will require nitrogen charges. We may have to utilize other more common, but less efficient cables for the time being.
These are more on the technical side, but on the business side, our time to market is my biggest concern.
Are there any issues with moving telco and data across state lines with our CPCN’s?
When you have private line services that cross state lines, those services fall under the FCC jurisdiction. We will report the revenue for interstate lit services on the FCC Form 499 and you would have significant regulatory assessments to pay on them (currently about 35% for the total assessments). You can pass those assessments through to your customers, although some may be exempt as resellers. You report wholesale revenue separately and it is not assessable as long as the downstream reseller is paying FUSF on the services it provisions using your service.
The CORES registration with the FCC and USAC registration for USF are all the entry requirements you need for interstate domestic services. If you handle interstate toll calls on the voice services you offer, those registrations also cover those services.
There is a separate and more formal process for international services, but you can cross that bridge when you get to it. It takes about 90 to 120 days if you have no foreign ownership.
All dedicated private line service is EITHER interstate or intrastate. If more than 10% of the usage is interstate, it belongs to the interstate jurisdiction. Otherwise it is intrastate (and does not cross state lines).
When you sell lit services to a customer, you should get a “customer use declaration” for the jurisdiction because on the customer can say how the service is being used.
All internet access is non-regulated at this point in time, but there are reporting obligations with the FCC and some states expect a form of registration, if you don’t otherwise have authority in the state.
What type of rock is the slowest for your process and why?
Sandstone, or other high silica rock.
Because it tends to create more lava, which can be removed by our process but is slower to remove via hitting it with cool/cold air jets and vacuuming it up when it becomes stringy from the airflow. Or it can be vaporized, but this takes even longer and uses more energy.
Note: sandstone represents about 0.75% of the Earth’s crust. Source.
What market opportunities are you looking at?
Florida Power& light is ramping up to 1 billion per year. Varying power lines in hurricanes prone areas. They've been spending on underground work for 20 years.
How are delivery intelligence initiative, research and reports commissioned by industry players show the following opportunities:
Underground power lines are 10 times more resilient
Underground power lines have 10 times lower operations and maintenance costs
Underground power lines have six times. Better safety record
Line strikes, also known as dig ends, have a cost of $30 - 90 billion per year.
Context. 2022-06-05, Doug Houseman was interviewed as part of Due Diligence.
See the report here (page 35). In the words of the report: “[Doug] had been thinking about plasma drilling and did an hour's worth of research after my email and then thought about it overnight.” We appreciate Doug’s participation in the due diligence process. We are impressed by the amount of applicable concerns he was able to identify so quickly when researching plasma torches as applied to our Tunnel Boring Robot (TBR), being applied to long distance tunneling projects. We offer a response to Doug’s thoughts here.
For easy reference, here’s an early concept sketch of TBR:
Excerpts from Doug’s thoughts are in blue. EarthGrid’s response in black.
A common theme with our response is: many of the challenges proposed by Doug are well understood and well-solved problems in many industries in the world today and will not require significant investment by EarthGrid. The significant effort from EarthGrid is in the integrated system required to make the many components work together. EarthGrid is heavily invested in hiring our engineering leaders and experts with experience working with large complicated machinery from a variety of industries.
How does EG manage the extremely hot vapors from the process as they exit the tunnel and prevent them from re-depositing in some form along the tunnel excavation?
We’re fine with re-depositing. We’ve observed that the vapors redeposit rather quickly. We expect with our TBR cooling solutions for this to be the case. Our current thinking includes using industrial vacuums for at least some portion of spoils/tailings removal. We foresee no challenges here.
The USGS provides national maps of approximately ten (10) geologic formations across the country but has limited accuracy to a matter of miles laterally and hundreds of feet vertically, structurally support the tunnel in various soil types other than solid rock.
This is a well understood civil engineering problem where EarthGrid will not re-invent. We expect our solutions will include similar solutions as are used by TBM manufactures shield designs. See the Robbins TBM below which uses a shield to 1) support the geology, and 2) protect equipment. With our TBR, we expect some (mostly near the front) of our shield will be actively cooled.
Additionally, we plan on using widely accepted and well-proven structural support technologies, such as shotcrete, curtain wall membranes to form the shotcrete, bolt anchors, and structural/rebar reinforcements as needed.
No rock bolting is necessary. Standard tunnel sprayed lining techniques are well understood and proven over the last couple of decades, in tunnels of varying diameters. We’ll use these standard methods, along with air pressure (2x to 3x atmospheres of pressure) to hold up the walls during tunnelling, controlled via an air lock at the tunnel entrance. This air pressure method has more than a century of use cases. Finally, our TBR will have a shield, above which we can inject the grout as needed prior to the paving tractor which follows immediately behind the TBR.
Remove the molten (lava) rock from the excavation and avoid interference with robot and power cables
Our patented “Air Squid” reduces the production of lava by over 70% (we spray chilled air at high velocity around the edges of the plasma plumes to break up the lava into easily removable bits. Where necessary we will shield cables and other equipment with cooled housing/protections. Cooling in such extreme environments is well understood and manageable using standard engineering approaches. Not only do our plasma torches prevent themselves from melting due to the high temperature plasma (6,000+ thousand degrees C), they are able to withstand the much lower temperatures of molten rock (1,000-3,000 degrees C).
Deal with salt domes that may have "self-healing' salt re-fill newly made excavations.
If salt domes are a problem for EarthGrid’s TBR, we will attempt to route around them. Salt domes can be identified using seismic refraction.
Multi-head (10?) drill face could cause a "plug" in the center of the excavation. How will possible plug be removed?
There are several responses to geology to our high temperatures, in order of highest velocity (and lowest energy) to lowest velocity (and highest energy): thermal spallation, melting, and vaporization. We have yet to observe any such behaviors in any geology we’ve tested and we aren’t aware of any materials which we cannot simply vaporize. In some theoretical situation where we can no longer spall and fracture rock (or glassified rock), we then are dealing with a sensing problem to “slow down” and vaporize the geology instead. The ability to sense the geology we’re operating within is already an identified area of major early investment and de-risking.
How will these heavy lines which may weigh as much as five tons/mile and, along with power cables, be supported and pulled (or pushed) through the tunnel at great depth and length of tunnel. 2) The power cables will be very heavy. Estimates for 3-phase 1,000 kcmil triplex conductor amount to as much as fifteen tons of cable per mile….The cable can be stiff, and increase required pulling tensions.
While 20 tons per mile may seem like a significant engineering challenge, managing equipment of such sizes and weight is a well understood problem in civil engineering and other infrastructure projects. We see no issues here with our concept approach of using electric carts interspersed along the tunnel length.
Some quick examples: Semi tractors (including the Tesla Semi) are capable of operating at highway speeds pulling 40 tons. Additionally, the heavier Tesla Model 3 vehicle trims weigh 2 tons. Both examples demonstrate the ability of moving significantly higher density equipment with electric motors.
While there are legitimate concerns with conductors capable of carrying the high amounts of power needed, this is also a well-solved problem. As an example, larger existing TBMs often require 8 MW+ of power which require similarly sized conductors. Pulling cables capable of such high power is a well understood problem in industry.
How and when will [TBR umbilical] cable splices and coolant line connections be serviced or repaired at depth?
Issues like this are very serious concerns. Our engineering team is intentionally recruited and well versed in designing, operating with, and defining requirements for safety critical, fault tolerant, and redundant systems. Each member of the current engineering team has significant experience in a variety of safety critical industries including experience with electric vehicles, autonomous aircraft, and industrial robotics.
We are applying a systems engineering approach to designing and building TBR. This includes defining Concept of Operations, defining systems requirements, allocating requirements to individual subsystems, analysis of alternatives, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), and so forth. We will diligently work to identify concerns like this using well known and robust engineering approaches and calculations to determine likely failure modes and mitigate them accordingly.
In response to the specific concern identified: we could use pumps to remove the water out of the tunnel (or into a storage tank which is then removed from the tunnel), and then repair the broken umbilical. Our tunnels are intentionally designed to be 2.5m in diameter to allow easy access for maintenance of the tenant utilities. We can take advantage of this for tunneling operations also.
How will system handle oil/gas deposit ruptures (and subsequent explosions) and similarly, encounters with water deposits under pressure that may rapidly back fill the tunnel, bore pit and surface.
We’ve performed testing with fossil fuels and have yet to experience such problems. We will continue to look for opportunities to test more scenarios which may prove challenging to deal with and we will continue to test in more real-world scenarios.
We’ve tested fossil fuels (propane, NG). They don’t explode, but simply burn and act as a catalyst.
The major consideration in this aspect as well as with water is in understanding the chemistry considerations. The amount of energy at the front of the TBR is in excess of the chemical energy release in the oxidation (fire) aspect of a hydrocarbon. By limiting the availability of oxygen, the ability to oxidize is inhibited. With the high energy aspect of the plasma, the chemical bonds that would release the chemical energy are broken prior to oxidation. This eliminates the majority of considerations for a chemical energy release with the exception of with H2O in which the plasma and thermal energy can at varying degrees, increase the work results through the expansion (gasification / steam) and release of oxygen and hydrogen atoms from their bonds. This is countered with the limits that result from additional H2O that has not been in contact with the plasma and acts to conduct the thermal energy to a state of entropy with the untouched H2O.
Handling water deposits is also a well understood problem in the various underground civil engineering industries.
The thermal energy creates an annealing effect with most of the geologies that are generally supporting aquifers. High content aquifers can be a problem and should be avoided using traditional and well understood methods from underground engineering and Geotech industries.
Additionally, our cement/shot-crete tunnel structural support will be designed to prevent water ingress issues.
Air pressure keeps most of the water out. A valve near the floor of the airlock will allow water to be removed (automatically) when water trickling in builds up on the floor. Water can only enter the tunnel at the cutting surface, since the walls are being lined with watertight shotcrete as we move forward.
How will giant reels of heavy power cable and coolant lines (as applicable) be transported and stored on site?
We perceive no challenges here. Normal semi trailers with reels of cable and pipes are sufficient for our needs. Additionally, we see no added challenges in our laydown space when compared to traditional tunneling and infrastructure project techniques.
The following are existing applications from non-EarthGrid projects. This is a well understood aspect.
Process will produce extremely hot (1,000 degree) steam from water or moisture in the soil and must escape the tunnel over the top of the robot and the power cables and coolant lines. The coolant lines (for water or glycol) will cool the robot, and they will need to re- circulate. How will these heavy lines which may weigh as much as five tons/mile and, along with power cables, be supported and pulled (or pushed) through the tunnel at great depth and length of tunnel. When there is a problem, will humans enter the tunnel? The power cables will be very heavy.
Estimates for 3-phase 1000kcmil triplex conductor amount to as much as fifteen tons of cable per mile. The cable can be stiff, and increase required pulling tensions when entering the bore pit (45 dg angle???) and then going horizontal (another 45 dg angle) at the final desired depth. How and when will cable splices and coolant line connections be serviced or repaired at depth?
How will the system handle oil/gas deposit ruptures (and subsequent explosions) and similarly, encounters with water deposits under pressure that may rapidly back fill the tunnel, bore pit, and surface.
Using nitrogen (instead of air) as the plasma gas eliminates nearly all oxygen to mitigate (possibly eliminate) any burning of combustible gases or liquids. Explosion is very unlikely due to the temperatures burning these gases so quickly. Plasma has been tested extensively by other parties using natural gas, propane, and hydrogen as accelerants (note: our Sun is a plasma ball of hydrogen and doesn’t explode; it burns). Combustible gases act as a catalyst, accelerating the boring process.
Our process creates increased air pressure due to the large volume of gas (air or nitrogen) injected into the cutting surface area. For more than a century, conventional tunneling used positive pressure to keep water, gases, and unconsolidated ground (such as dirt/soil, fractured rock, etc.) from caving in the tunnel. EarthGrid can control this air pressure from our control trailer to significantly mitigate the encroachment of any of these materials into the tunnel. The positive air pressure (e.g. 2x or 3x atmospheric pressure) holds up the walls and keeps water & gases at bay.
How will giant reels of heavy power cable and coolant lines (as applicable) be transported and stored on site?
While 20 tons per mile may seem like a significant engineering challenge, managing equipment of such sizes and weight is a well understood problem in civil engineering and other infrastructure projects. We see no issues here with our concept approach of using electric carts interspersed along the tunnel length.
Some quick examples: Semi tractors (including the Tesla Semi) are capable of operating at highway speeds pulling 40 tons. Additionally, the heavier Tesla Model 3 vehicle trims weigh 2 tons. Both examples demonstrate the ability of moving significantly higher density equipment with electric motors.
While there are legitimate concerns with conductors capable of carrying the high amounts of power needed, this is also a well-solved problem. As an example, larger existing TBMs often require 8 MW+ of power which require similarly sized conductors. Pulling cables capable of such high power is a well understood problem in industry.
Will power line reconductoring limit EarthGrid’s market potential for underground power lines?
See article here.
Troy Helming is an investor in a reconductoring company (CTCC) and is well aware of this. To increase the grid capacity 3x to accommodate the electrification of everything, and another 3x to accommodate AI data center growth, reconductoring won't solve it. Using the existing towers and span distances, we can get maybe a 20-50% increase in capacity on most cables, and 2x in some rare cases. Putting in new towers (stronger or more frequent placement) to handle more copper/aluminum weight triggers the same decades-long permitting challenges.
What is the founding story or origin story of the company?
Founder Troy Helming, having been in solar & wind farm development since the mid-1990s, experienced numerous challenges with connecting solar & wind farms to the grid. Like all other clean energy project developers, interconnection studies (which used to take 1-2 years and now take 4-7 years) typically come back with results making the project “dead in the water” due to:
insufficient capacity on the power lines,
High interconnection costs, or
Both.
In 2016, due to grid constraints, Mr. Helming’s prior company, Pristine Sun, had to downsize a solar farm in northern California by 75%. Had they been able to go under three creeks and protected wetlands, the project would have been full-size. However, the cost of underground bores was so high that the project had to be downsized. Lack of sufficient transmission lines - which take 10-25 years to develop, permit, and build, and most such projects get killed before they ever get built - is the biggest impediment to the growth of clean energy.
The company sponsored a Happy Hour with the team to drown their tears over beers, and a GIS solar engineer - a former Navy SEAL - was bragging to his girlfriend about how his SEAL team used to practice taking over enemy ships by cutting through the side of the vessel underwater using a plasma cutting torch. He said it operated at over 20,000 degrees and could take your arm off. The team was impressed with the story. Mr. Helming woke up that night in the middle of the night with an “ah ha” moment, thinking plasma could be repurposed to bore tunnels through rock faster & cheaper to solve this problem. He paid an engineering firm to complete a feasibility study in 2017, built the prototype, proved it worked, and invested $13 Million to bootstrap the company for the first five years.
Ground Water Plumes & Environmental management - Thoughts around contaminated ground water plume management.
Plasma has been used for decades to remediate contaminated soil and groundwater. Plasma temperatures break down the chemical bonds of molecules to at or closer to their constituent elements, rendering the soil or water inert and/or nontoxic. Any such soil or water that we encounter along the way will be cleaned up as an inherent part of our process.
It still seems that wall lining and spoils removal are big risks/challenges but although you indicate that you have been testing this since 2018, you don’t explain while you feel there are no longer operational risks. (from a VC)
Wall lining. We will use conventional tunnel lining methods specified by the tunnel engineering firm we hire for each project. For example, we sprayed shotcrete on the 2.5-meter diameter test tunnel we completed last month. That worked well.
Ground control. One of our Advisory Board members, Terry McDonald, indicated that because our TBR will be an unmanned, semi-autonomous robot, he's excited that we can use positive air pressure (2x to 3x atmospheres) to keep water out and hold up the ground as we bore. This was the primary method used for many decades until insurance companies ran up the cost of insuring the workers inside the tunnels due to the Benz risk. We also have a shield above our TBR to support the ground and inject the grout/shotcrete above the shield in front of our paving (shotcrete-spraying rig) from Shotcrete Technologies.
Spoils removal. We've tested the industrial mining rock removal system, i-vac, on our spoils, including hot magma, gravel, sand, silt, etc. The i-vac model we purchased can move a car-sized pile of gravel up to 8 km away with no elevation change and up to 5 km with a 250m rise in elevation. Our tunneling advisors (we have many, including from the CO School of Mines) tell us there are various methods for spoils removal for 1m to 2.5m diameter tunnels. These diameters were historically more challenging to remove spoils from, but that's not been the case for many years. Large-diameter tunnels have even more options available for spoils removal.
Everyone keeps telling us that the risk is no longer tech risk. The risk is still quite high, however, and includes system integration risk (combining all these off-the-shelf systems) and execution risk. For more information, see our Bankability deck.
How do you mitigate fire risk at job sites? 6,000 degree plasma would start fires if grass, tree roots, or anything flammable comes into contact with the plasma, right?
We spray any flammable materials or vegetation with Komodo Fire suppression liquid, a non-toxic, biodegradable retardant.
We always have a water truck on site, just in case.
We have an extensive written safety plan - with multiple safety briefings at regular intervals along with regular safety training - that we follow, in testing and on job sites. This safety plan was submitted to multiple utility companies and met with their approval.
What unique insights do the founders and/or executive team have regarding the problem you are addressing that other companies may not have?
Troy Helming has been developing renewable energy infrastructure projects