Plasma deep bore drilling drills 30 times faster in hard rock than conventional thus enabler for geothermal energy to give CO2 neutral, 24/7 energy almost anywhere in the world. Also for disposal of HL nuclear waste, mining and tunnelling applications.
Mechanical drills generally break the rock under compression, cracking about 3mm ahead while the plasma torches heat the rock locally up to 50,000 deg c that cause impurities within the rock up to 30 mm deep to expand resulting in massive pressures that cause the rock to fail under tension, with cuttings spalling away.
The following film clips are the demonstrations referenced in the above presentation: