BHP invests in Gates and Friedland-backed firm I-ROX SAS

BHP (ASX: BHP) has joined billionaire Robert Friedland's I-Pulse Inc. and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a clean-tech venture backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, to speed up technologies that can help the mining sector save on energy.

I-Pulse and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV)-Europe launched earlier this year a company named I-Rox, a France-based firm focused on demonstrating a pulsed-power technology said to reduce the amount of energy needed to crush rock.

The value of BHP’s equity investments in I-Pulse and I-Rox wasn't disclosed, but the world’s largest miner will join I-Pulse and BEV Europe as shareholders of I-ROX, the firms said.

I-Rox uses high-voltage pulses of power to disintegrate rock, an approach that has been trialled in laboratories for years but has yet to be applied in commercial mining operations.

The agreements not only give BHP access to the new technology, but it also makes it an active partner in I-Pulse and BEV Europe’s quest to identify new applications for pulsed-power technology in a mining context.