About this episode

Laurence Allen discusses how his company Terranova is addressing flooding and land subsidence using innovative technology.

Laurence Allen, founder and CEO of Terranova, explains why flooding and land subsidence are unsolvable with seawalls alone — and how his company is using underground robotics and woodchip injection to physically lift sinking land back up. We explore the scale of the global subsidence crisis, why cities from Jakarta to Miami to San Francisco are running out of options, and what it would take to deploy this technology at city scale. If you're interested in climate resilience, infrastructure, real estate, defense technology, or the future of human engineering, this episode maps out a solution most people assumed was impossible. In this episode: Why seawalls fail against permanent sea level rise — and the coastal cities most at risk How Terranova's robots inject woodchip slurry 60 feet underground to lift an acre of land by a foot in a single day Why woodchips are cheaper than dirt and available at massive scale in flood-prone regions How AI and machine learning are being used to map underground soil conditions and predict injection outcomes The permitting landscape, groundwater safety, and why regulators have been surprisingly supportive Terranova's current deployments, customer…

People in this episode

Host: Dan Steinhart

Guest: Laurence Allen

Topics covered

• climate resilience
• infrastructure
• real estate
• defense technology
• human engineering
• flooding
• land subsidence

Keywords

• flooding
• land subsidence
• seawalls
• underground robotics
• woodchip injection
• climate resilience
• AI
• machine learning
• infrastructure crisis
• coastal cities

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Terranova, Army Corps of Engineers

Places: Jakarta, Miami, San Francisco

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