Shivani Torres

Shivani Torres, 30, has always considered herself a maker. That hands-on approach led her to invent a process that can bore through rock using heat instead of physical methods like blasting or drilling. As cofounder and chief product officer at Petra, Torres led the research and development of a robot that harnesses the heat produced by a jet engine to pulverize rock.

The idea of noncontact drilling arose in the 1970s, when scientists began experimenting with nuclear reactions and plasma as alternatives to conventional drills. Neither idea proved viable. As a student at Stanford, Torres worked in the university’s metal shop, where she saw the effectiveness of small-scale torches powered by jet engines firsthand.

At Petra, she hypothesized that the same process could work on rock, which expands and eventually shatters when subjected to high heat (Torres likens this process to putting a cold glass dish into a very hot oven). With a jet engine and a custom afterburner she designed, Torres and her team created a highly efficient cutting torch that can bore through even the toughest rock with minimal impact to whatever’s around it.

Compared with conventional drilling, says Torres, “it’s safer, it’s more affordable, and because it can be fueled by biodiesel, it’s also more sustainable.”

Petra intends to market this technology as an integral part of the movement to bury our nation’s outdated grid system underground, where it will be less vulnerable to natural disasters and worsening storms.