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Denmark’s Orsted said Thursday it would “reuse, recycle, or recover” all turbine blades in its worldwide portfolio of wind farms once they’re decommissioned.  

The world’s largest offshore wind farm developer said it had “a clear responsibility to help find solutions to the challenge of recycling blades.”

The issue of what to do with wind turbine blades when they’re no longer needed is a headache for the industry. This is because the composite materials blades are made from can be difficult to recycle, with Orsted noting that “most” blades, once decommissioned, were landfilled.

As governments around the world attempt to ramp up their renewable energy capacity, the number of wind turbines globally looks set to increase.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said that in the offshore sector alone it wants capacity to hit at least 60 gigawatts by 2030 and 300 GW by the middle of the century.

The U.K., which left the EU at the end of January 2020, wants its offshore wind capacity to reach 40 GW by 2030. The U.S. is also looking to significantly increase its offshore wind capacity this decade.

Given the above, the problem of what to do with turbine blades will become even more pressing going forward. For its part, Orsted explained it would “temporarily store” decommissioned blades if finding a solution to recycling them took “longer to solve than anticipated.”

A number of companies involved in the sector have attempted to find solutions to the issue in recent years. In January 2020, wind energy giant Vestas said it was aiming to produce “zero-waste” wind turbines by the year 2040.

Last December, GE Renewable Energy and Veolia North America signed a “multi-year agreement” to recycle blades removed from onshore wind turbines in the United States.

More recently, it was announced that a collaboration between academia and industry would focus on the recycling of glass fiber products, a move that could eventually help to reduce the waste produced by wind turbine blades.

Orsted, Vestas and LM Wind Power — which is part of GE Renewable Energy — are also part of the DecomBlades consortium, an initiative focused on blade recycling.

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Elon Musk says Tesla has a ‘performance Cybertruck’

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Elon Musk says Tesla has a 'performance Cybertruck'

Elon Musk reveals that Tesla has a ‘performance Cybertruck’ – indicating that it could be one of the first versions of the electric pickup truck.

Tesla is on the verge of delivering the first Cybertruck.

Despite the automaker having produced likely hundreds of trucks and being about to start deliveries, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the electric pickup truck.

Tesla first unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019 and announced specs and pricing at the time, but the automaker is known to update its vehicles significantly from prototype to production. On top of it, the auto market has changed a lot since then, and that is expected to completely change the prices that Tesla announced for the Cybertruck.

Those expected changes have led to speculation about which Cybertruck models are going to be available, when, and at what prices.

We have recently seen evidence that at least some of Tesla’s Cybertruck release candidates are dual-motor powertrain trucks, which is leading people to believe that it might likely be the first

Now CEO Elon Musk is now adding some information into the mix by saying on X that he recently drove a “performance Cybertruck”:

I just drove the performance Cybertruck today and it kicks ass next-level.

This means that Tesla currently has a “performance” version of the Cybertruck, which could mean it could be amongst the first versions to come to market.

Tesla has previously announced a tri-motor version of the Cybertruck with the following specs:

  • Tri Motor AWD with 500+ miles of range, 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds, top speed of 130 mph, and starting price of $69,900

That could certainly qualify as a “performance version”, but there have also been rumors of Tesla offering a potential quad-motor version of the Cybertruck, which could have even higher performance.

Tesla is expected to announce all the details of the Cybertruck at a delivery event, which could come within the next few weeks.

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This 100 MPH ‘street legal’ 2-seater electric race car from China looks pretty legit

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This 100 MPH 'street legal' 2-seater electric race car from China looks pretty legit

Most of the fun and funky vehicles I manage to dredge up for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week are big on weirdness but short on power. This time that seems to be reversed, as this electric race car is more wild than weird and comes with some seriously impressive performance.

This isn’t some slow crawling electric battle tank or ice-cream truck shaped like a VW bus. Those are more typical of this series on odd Chinese EVs, but this time we’re going all-in for extreme performance.

That means you’d better be ready to buckle in for speeds of up to 160 km/h (100 mph)! And based on some of these product photos, I wouldn’t mind buckling into the passenger seat for the first few rides.

Powering this little racer’s rear wheels is a 10 kW (13.5 hp) electric motor, which might not sound that powerful, but remember just how potent the low end torque from an electric motor is for rocketing off the line.

And since the entire vehicle only weighs 650 kg (1,433 lb), not to mention an extra 45 kg (100 lb) of cover girl model, there just isn’t that much mass here to be accelerated.

Plus the Chinese tend to rate motors with continuous power, not peak power. So there’s probably more kilowatts under the hood than we’re expecting. There’s no information on what kind of controller is powering that motor, but I’d wager that the peak power could be closer to 20 kW (27 hp).

There’s also a surprisingly large battery in this little racer, to the tune of 14.4 kWh. It’s a 96V pack built from LG lithium-ion cells and would give several American electric motorcycles a run for their money.

According to the vendor, it should be enough for 150 km (96 miles) of range per charge, though there’s no mention if that’s on a city street track or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Speaking of city streets, the company says that the vehicle is ECE certified and “can be legally driven on European streets”. I guess we’ll just have to take their word on that, unless someone wants to buy one of these and try it out themselves.

There’s no word on DOT-certification and so it’s likely not street legal in the US. But that might not stop someone from going full-‘Murica doing donuts in the local Krogers parking lot with their bald eagle riding shotgun.

If you want to get some skin in the game (eagle not included), it’s going to cost you a cool US $28,000. Or at least that would be the first payment. There’s no telling how much you’d have to fork over afterwards for ocean freight, import charges, taxes, and other add-on charges along the way.

But for anyone hoping to try their luck with the local European cops, it’s at least comforting to see that these vehicles seem to actually be in real production.

The vendor shared several images of what look like a sea of frames alongside several partially assembled race cars.

I’m not recommending anyone actually try to buy one of these from Alibaba. In fact, I’d probably recommend the opposite. Let’s just treat this as a fun window-shopping exercise.

But for the person who inevitably ignores my warnings (as many of my readers have been known to do) and plunks down some serious cash for one of these, let me know if and when it arrives. I will be there in a second to go for a ride with you!

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This EV fast charging station tells you when its power is at its cheapest and greenest

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This EV fast charging station tells you when its power is at its cheapest and greenest

This DC fast charging station tells EV drivers when renewable energy is at its peak in the grid – and thus when charging prices are cheapest. 

The “Better Energy Charge” station in Sønderborg, Denmark, is owned by renewable energy company Better Energy. (It sits next to the company’s R&D solar park.)

What makes this charging station unique is its dynamic pricing model. It differs from traditional fixed pricing schemes because it incentivizes EV drivers with lower charging prices when renewable energy is at its peak on the grid.

The charging price, which is available the day before, follows the Danish energy spot prices. Similar to a gas station’s pricing signs, the EV charging station’s price board is visible from the road. (Why don’t all EV charging stations do this?)

“We want to encourage people to charge their cars when there is a lot of renewable electricity in the grid by making it cheaper when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing,” said Peter Munck Søe-Jensen, EVP of power solutions at Better Energy.

The Danish company feels its model helps drivers plan in advance to charge their EVs when energy is at its cheapest. And by charging EVs when solar and wind energy production is high, consumers can also increase the probability that it’s renewable, not fossil fuel-powered, energy.

What do you think of this model? Have you seen anything similar? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more: Electrify America, Blink to add Tesla’s NACS connector to their EV chargers


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