NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 23, 2026--
I-Pulse Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO Robert Friedland, I-Pulse Co-Founder and Head of Technology Laurent Frescaline, and Sunrise Energy Metals Managing Director Sam Riggall, are delighted to announce a partnership to deploy and validate I-Pulse’s G-Pulse pulsed power drilling technology in the Millungera Basin, a large-scale geothermal clean energy resource located in northwest Queensland, Australia.
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Under an earn-in agreement, I-Pulse will assume operational control and funding of the Millungera Basin Geothermal Project through a capital-light, technology-driven joint venture structure. Sunrise remains a free-carried minority holder of the site, ensuring alignment, continuity and local resourcing, while I-Pulse retains operational and financial control. Greenvale Mining also continues as a partner in the venture. At completion of the earn-in, a joint venture will be established for the project, with the JV parties being I-Pulse (65%), Greenvale (20%) and Sunrise (15%).
I-Pulse subsidiary G-Pulse is focused on deploying high pulsed power technology to address one of the most challenging and expensive stages of geothermal development — drilling deep wells into extremely hard rock formations to access hot granites deep beneath the Earth’s surface. Using this technology, the company plans to advance detailed technical programs designed to unlock the full geothermal potential of the Millungera Basin.
The Millungera Basin is widely considered to be one of the most significant untapped geothermal energy resources identified in recent decades. More than 300 kilometres long and 40 to 50 kilometres wide, the basin contains geological formations dating back 540 million years.
An analysis by Ascendience Geoscience, an independent geoscience consultancy engaged by Greenvale Mining, has confirmed the basin’s extraordinary geothermal potential, with total identified stored thermal energy exceeding 611,000 petajoules at a 90% confidence level. This equates to 600 times Australia’s current annual electrical consumption.
By dramatically reducing drilling time and cost while improving efficiency and well performance, G-Pulse aims to unlock geothermal energy resources on an unprecedented scale by dramatically reducing the cost of drilling into hard granites, accelerating the deployment of clean, reliable baseload power.
For nearly two decades, Albuquerque, New Mexico-based I-Pulse has led the development of high pulsed power systems to transform how electrical energy is deployed. Its proprietary technology generates extremely short, yet extraordinarily powerful, bursts of electricity, delivering immense energy density at a very low incremental cost.
In practical terms, the technology can draw energy from something as small as a mobile phone battery and convert it into brief bursts of power comparable to the output of a nuclear power plant, delivering it safely and repeatedly in fractions of a second. This capability is enabling step-change innovation across multiple industries, including geothermal energy.
“The Millungera Basin represents an extraordinary endowment of geothermal energy,” I-Pulse Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Robert Friedland said. “At I-Pulse, we believe geothermal has the potential to become one of the most important sources of clean, perpetual baseload energy on Earth. By combining the immense natural heat stored in this basin with our breakthrough pulsed power technologies, we are working toward a future where deep geothermal systems can provide reliable, carbon-free electricity on a global scale.”
“Early-stage mapping and drilling on two areas of the Millungera Basin by the Geological Survey of Queensland has identified it as one the largest and most prospective geothermal basins on the Australian continent,” Sunrise Managing Director Sam Riggall said.
“Millungera is a cornerstone asset in I-Pulse’s global geothermal strategy,” I-Pulse Co-Founder and Head of Technology Laurent Frescaline added. “Through our G-Pulse technology, we are developing a fundamentally new way to drill into deep hot rock formations, dramatically lowering the cost and time required to access geothermal energy. Our vision is to unlock vast geothermal resources around the world and deliver clean, perpetual energy for the planet.”
The joint venture establishes I-Pulse as a major participant in the next generation of large-scale, low-emissions baseload power development, supporting Australia’s energy transition while advancing the company’s broader mission to unlock geothermal energy resources globally. The structure of the agreement venture allows I-Pulse to control the project while earning up to a 65% joint venture interest in the project.
THE MILLUNGERA BASIN
The Millungera Basin is located in northwest Queensland, approximately 200 kilometers east of Mount Isa. The Basin extends more than 300 km in a north-south direction and is 40 to 50 km wide, covering an area of approximately 15,000 km². It lies within the Central Australia Heat-Flow Province, a large region of elevated geothermal activity encompassing parts of Queensland, South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Beneath the Millungera Basin, several granitic bodies are interpreted from seismic data, representing a potential radiogenic heat source for a hot rock geothermal system. The granitic intrusions underlying the basin are inferred to be similar to the Mesoproterozoic Williams Supersuite, whose Williams and Naraku batholiths have heat production values of 6.72 and 7.50 microwatt per cubic meter respectively.
ABOUT I-PULSE
I-Pulse is a private American company co-founded by Robert Friedland and Laurent Frescaline to bring high pulsed power technology into civilian sectors. I-Pulse technology – which repeatedly compresses and releases brief yet immensely powerful electrical discharges – holds the potential to address critical global issues like the unlocking of competitive geothermal base-load energy sources, agricultural crop protection, efficient critical mineral production, and disruptive welding, metal-forming and crimping solutions at industrial scale. Founded in 2007, I-Pulse is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has offices in New York and London. The company has lab and manufacturing facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Detroit, Michigan and Toulouse, France.
Follow @I-Pulse Group on LinkedIn and Robert Friedland @robert_ivanhoe on X.
Left: Millungera Basin location in Queensland, Australia. Right: Millungera Basin (in brown) to the east of the Mt Isa Inlier (in red) and EPG permit areas.
Strikes on cities across Iran have killed more than 25 people Sunday into Monday, while in Israel's Haifa two people were found dead and two others were missing in rubble a day after an Iranian attack.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday stepped up his threat to hit Iran's critical infrastructure hard if the country's government doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday deadline.
Trump punctuated his threat with profanity in a social media post, saying Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”
The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes from the United Nations and international law experts.
Here is the latest:
Iran and the United States have received a draft proposal that calls for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as a possible way to end the war, two Mideast officials told The Associated Press.
The proposal comes from Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators working to halt the fighting, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.
They hope the 45-day window would provide enough time for extensive talks between the countries to reach a permanent ceasefire.
Iran and the U.S. have not responded to the proposal, which was sent late Sunday night to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, the officials said.
It remains unclear whether the sides would agree to such terms. Iran has insisted it will keep fighting until it receives financial reparations and a promise it won’t be attacked again. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power stations this week.
The news website Axios first reported terms of the proposal.
An Iranian drone attack damaged a telecommunications building in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, the state-run WAM news agency reported.
The attack targeted a building of the state-funded du telecom company.
No one was injured, WAM reported, quoting officials in Fujairah.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service says there are no signs North Korea is providing Iran with weapons or other war-related supplies.
The spy agency’s officials told lawmakers Monday that North Korea may be taking a cautious approach to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the Trump administration, according to two lawmakers who attended the closed-door briefing.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, but the NIS said Pyongyang has not sent an official condolence message over the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s late supreme leader.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent years has embraced the idea of a “new Cold War” and attempted to expand cooperation with countries confronting the U.S., including an economic delegation sent to Iran in April 2024.
South Korea plans to send at least five ships to Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port in the coming weeks to establish new oil transport routes in the Red Sea.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said Monday the ships will be deployed in phases beginning in mid-April and the number of vessels could increase depending on contracts with Saudi partners.
Officials did not disclose the companies involved but said some domestic refiners may use non-Korean shipping firms.
South Korea also plans to send special envoys to Saudi Arabia, Oman and Algeria to step up diplomatic efforts to secure alternative fuel supplies, ruling party lawmaker Ahn Do-geol said.
The foreign ministry did not immediately reveal when the envoys would be sent.
Iran has executed another man convicted over charges stemming from the nationwide protests that swept Iran in January.
The judiciary’s Mizan news agency identified the man hanged as Ali Fahim in a report Monday.
It was unclear when he was executed.
Fahim had been convicted of allegedly storming a military base to seize weapons.
Amnesty International said Fahim and others convicted in the case “were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention, including beatings, floggings, prolonged solitary confinement, and death threats at gunpoint before being convicted in grossly unfair trials that relied on forced ‘confessions’ extracted under torture and lasted only a few hours.”
The Human Rights Activist News Agency had said Fahim and others had entered a Tehran base of the all-volunteer Basij militia, an arm of the Revolutionary Guard, after it had been burned, then had been forced into confessions.
Israel rescue services reported Monday morning several sites were hit by missiles launched from Iran toward multiple cities in the center of Israel.
In Petah Tikva, paramedics provided medical treatment to an injured woman in serious condition with a chest injury from shrapnel and evacuated her to the Beilinson Hospital.
Fire fighters in that city are handling cars on fire and continue searching to ensure there are no people trapped in the rubble.
In Tel Aviv, a man slightly injured by glass shrapnel was evacuated to the Ichilov Hospital.
Footage provided by rescue service Magen David Adom shows damage to residential buildings due to the attack.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military warned the public Monday morning of another missile barrage coming from Iran, the fourth-such alert of the day.
Israel’s Magen David Adom and Fire and Rescue services said early Monday that there are several reported sites of Iranian missile hits in the northern city of Haifa.
In one site, four people were slightly injured, including two children.
The missile attacks hit residential areas and a factory in the city.
The factory was hit by shrapnel from an interception.
It is unclear if all the reported hits were caused by shrapnel from interception or direct hits.
Video footage provided by Magen David Adom of the affected sites show active fire and bombed cars in what appears to be a residential area.
The missile strikes come a day after another attack from Iran also hit a Haifa residential area, killing two people and injuring others.
Two other people remain missing under the rubble caused by Sunday's strike and their fate is still unknown.
In the United Arab Emirates’ capital of Abu Dhabi, authorities said a Ghanaian man suffered wounds from shrapnel after the interception of an Iranian missile over the city’s Musaffah neighborhood.
That’s near Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts U.S. forces and has been repeatedly targeted by Iran in the war.
Women hold Iranian flags during a pro-government gathering in a square in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A picture of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hangs on the side of the road in the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, early Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rescue workers search for victims at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit a crowded neighbourhood south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A commercial plane is preparing to land at Beirut Airport as smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Israeli security forces and rescue teams work amid the rubble of a residential building struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
