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technology as the driver for change? From studies in mining tunnelling it is obvious that developments in drilling technology, as well as increased drilling rates, have not led to a significant increase in the rate of tunnel development. Drilling rates with mechanized drills have increased fivefold in the last 50 years, while tunnel development rates in mechanized mining operations have reduced to about one-third of those 50 years ago. The biggest obstacle to lower cost and safer mining in narrow-reef orebodies, typical of the gold, platinum, and chrome mines found in southern Africa, is the blasting cycle, with its inherent poor utilization of the mining assets. In conventional mining operations, the total face working time is typically less than eight hours per day and less than seven days a week. In reality only 25% of the totally available time is utilized to generate revenue (Fenn, 2016). What is required is a technology that allows for continuous mining, thereby maximizing the use of the asset. By implementing some form of non-explosive mining the rate of face advance can be increased and the length of face being worked can be reduced, which leads to more concentrated mining. Concentrated mining means less service infrastructure, less ventilation, and more effective management. In soft-rock mining this has been achieved with the introduction of pick-cutting machines, such as road-headers, shearers, and continuous miners. The introduction of pick-cutting in the coal mining industry in the 1950s led the move away from blasting and by the mid1990s fatalities, measured in deaths per million tons produced, had reduced to only 1.6% of the 1947 figure and productivity at British Coal, measured in tons per employee, had risen by more than 20 times compared to the blasting era (Pickering, 2004). Replacing blasting with cutting also reduces the blast damage to the surrounding rock and increases safety. Operating 24/7 results in much higher rates of face advance in development ends, leading to shorter lead times to production and better NPV returns Thus, we see that the move to non-explosive mining had a major impact on safety, productivity, operating costs,, and return on invested capital. The only rock-cutting machines that have been operated successfully in hard-rock mining are raise-boring machines and, in very limited applications, tunnel-boring machines (TBMs). All these machines use discs or buttons to break the rock, primarily in compression; and to overcome the high Controlled foam injection: a new and innovative non-explosive rockbreaking technology