Terranova is lifting land out of flood zones using terraforming robots
13 comments
·November 16, 2025dinkblam
0_____0
1.8GJ is pretty much exactly 500kWh? That's not awful in terms of energy, although intuitively I suspect that the real-world energy used would be at least an order of magnitude higher than the gravitational potential energy gain.
HanClinto
It is cool that they don't disturb the surface vegetation or topsoil by simply dumping dredge tailings on the surface. Their method reminds me of injecting expanding foam underneath concrete slabs to lift and level them.
"Flood-prone terrain is then elevated by injecting a wood-based slurry 15–300 feet underground"
This is the part that's odd to me. A wood-based slurry? If there's high organic content in the pump material, won't that decompose (and settle down) over time? I would think that they would want to use something less organic (such as dredge tailings) as their fill material.
They say it's compact within a few hours and doesn't need much time to settle before it's ready to be built on -- but how long does it last?
ungreased0675
Fascinating problem, incomprehensible solution. How exactly does it work?
o1bf2k25n8g5
The technology does seem interesting. But what's the monetization model?
It looks like it's marketed towards fitting in to the construction process. So I suppose it could monetize as just another construction contractor? But that would mean effectively just a set amount of money per "job," rather than any sort of truly recurring revenue.
wheelerwj
This is a god awful website
tetris11
It would be nice to see one clear image of the actual device, instead of shadowy dramatic camera pans of what looked like an alien landing.
dinkblam
welcome to the modern internet
tabular
Why does it need robots? Seems much simpler with a few guys with pumps.
eliaspro
Because then there's no VC money to be made. It needs at least robots. And I bet they were better off, if those robots were "smart" and AI-powered!
DonHopkins
To kill all humans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M
It's based on the same technology as Mar-a-Lago Face: "gender-affirming care the right can celebrate".
homeonthemtn
Love the melodramatic marketing for a scoop bot.
This is very silly.
metalman
somehow, someone, imagines that they can bypass what are almost universal bans on tampering with wet lands, and monitise the poor choices made in the past, where infrastucture was built in tidal and flood zones......the kinds of areas that are becomming, impossible to insure now. all by adding the word robot, to a business that is completly mature, ie: excavation and construction quite odd, big money?, bad scam?, delusinal!,something something AI? only interesting as to how it is still floating, here
> Flood-prone terrain is then elevated by injecting a wood-based slurry 15–300 feet underground. > The Ark system is sized to lift an acre by a foot each day.
this sounds like science fiction, it would need to uniformly lift between 18.500 and 370.000 cubic meter of soil/rock by 30cm a day.
300.000 m³ soil/rock would weigh something like 600.000 tonnes and would require ~1.8 GJ to lift by one foot even with zero loss and discounting all other factors apart from lifting the mass.