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Oh, those pesky wind turbines, running around the countryside cluttering up the landfills with their big old unrecyclable blades. That’s the picture drawn by critics, but not for long. A new scheme is afoot that takes the old blades from a wind turbine and recycles them into new energy storage systems for wind and solar power.

What To Do With Those Pesky Old Wind Turbine Blades

Actually, the wind turbine recycling issue is a bit of a red herring. After all, the fossil energy industry has squeezed who knows how many trillions of tons of raw resources out of the ground, to be used once and never to be replaced, reclaimed, recycled, or reused again, let alone upcycled, unless you count their contribution to global carbon load as a kind of recycling, which is a bit of a stretch.

Nevertheless, the global wind industry is coming of age in an era when public policy and consumer demand are beginning to steer the global economy into a more sustainable, circular form. That pushes wind turbine blade recycling into priority status.

Wind Turbine Blades & The Circular Economy

The typical wind turbine blade lasts about 20 years, which means that a flood of spent blades is about to hit the global market.

Wouldn’t you know it, the US Department of Energy is right on top of the circular economy thing. Last month the agency’s Wind Energy Technologies office ran down some of the wind turbine blade recycling solutions bubbling up through the R&D pipeline and noted that the most effective strategy would be to design recycling and reuse into materials, components, and systems from the very beginning.

“A circular economy for energy materials also means that technology should be engineered from the start to require fewer materials, resources, and energy while lasting longer and having components that can easily be broken down for use in subsequent applications,” the Energy Department explained, citing a new lightening-resistant and erosion-resistant blade coatings developed by the firms Arctura and Resodyn Corp.

In partnership with the firm Arkema, Inc., the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has also been hammering away at a new resin-based turbine blade material that can be reduced to a liquid and reformed into new blades and other items, while reducing  labor and energy inputs.

Better Ways To Recycle Old Blades

That’s all well and good for future generations of wind turbine blades, but what about those in operation now?

Yes, what about them? Fiberglass can be recovered from spent blades, but the range of application is limited because recycled fiberglass tends to lose quality.

The Energy Department has an answer for that, too. They are especially excited about a research partnership between the University of Tennessee and the firm Carbon Rivers, which involves a heat-based method for reclaiming fiberglass from wind turbines and recycling it into a high-value material for various industries including aerospace.

Extending the useful lifespan of old wind turbine blades is also part of the Energy Department’s strategy, including the use of drones and other advanced systems for monitoring, maintenance, and repair.

Hey, What About Recycling Wind Turbine Blades For Energy Storage?

Into this picture steps the Swiss energy storage firm Energy Vault, which has crossed the CleanTechnica radar previously on account of its gravity-based energy storage system.

The Energy Vault concept is similar to pumped hydro energy storage. Instead of storing electricity in a lithium-ion battery or other chemical systems, you deploy excess wind or solar power to raise something heavy upwards. When demand for electricity rises, gravity does all the heavy lifting. You allow your heavy thing — water, or in Energy Vault’s case, 35-ton blocks — to fall back to its starting point, and it generates electricity on the way down.

Pumped hydro is not a new technology, and here in the US it still dominates the energy storage field. Its advantages over battery-type systems include holding massive amounts of energy for long periods of time.

The problem is location, location, location. The Energy Department has been working on new pumped hydro technology that could enable the nation to grow the domestic industry, but for now there are few prospects for constructing new pumped hydro reservoirs in the US.

Energy Vault’s block-type gravity system could help resolve the location issue, since it does not require massive new infrastructure and copious amounts of water. All it really needs is 35-ton blocks, and those could be made from just about anything, including wind turbine blades.

Let The Wind Power – Energy Storage Mashup Begin

And, that’s where the company Enel Green Power comes in. The company, which comes under the Enel Group umbrella, has been aiming to hitch its renewable energy activities to new forms of energy storage, and it is very excited about the potential for Energy Vault to provide a home for spent wind turbine blades.

“The benefits of this solution are the same as those of a pumped storage hydro plant, but at a much lower cost, with greater possibility of being replicated in any geographical context and greater efficiency: the Energy Vault technology can even exceed an efficiency level of 80%,” EGP enthuses.

“Moreover, there are clear benefits compared to batteries: a plant of this type is not exposed to storage medium degradation (no need for augmentation over time), risk of fire, has a long lifespan of 30-35 years and its eventual dismantling will not pose particular difficulties, as the blocks are composed of inert materials and are created directly on site,” EGP adds.

Energy Vault already has a 5-megawatt demonstration facility under its belt, and it recently introduced its new “EVx” configuration that requires 40% less height than its former design. Last week the company signed an agreement with EGP to study the feasibility of a system that weighs in at “a few dozen megawatt-hours,” using material from spent wind turbine blades to form the blocks.

EGP anticipates that the study will greenlight the construction plan for a new Energy Vault project, deploying the new EVx design, in the coming year.

So, What About The Birds?

Yes, what about them? Years before the recycling issue popped up, wind power critics (looking at you, fossil energy lobby) were accusing wind turbines of causing birds to die, conveniently overlooking the fact that wind turbines are a relatively small part of a huge problem.

Practically everything that people make causes birds to die, and the worst offenders by far are buildings, overhead power lines, agricultural chemicals, and various devices used legally for hunting, among other things. For that matter, domestic cats — oh, but why beat a dead horse?

The point is that everything is killing birds. The counterfactual focus on wind turbines began about a dozen years ago and it was picked up and promoted by former President Trump, who promoted the wind turbine canard to help propel himself into office the first time.

It didn’t work the second time, which is good news for the birds, because Trump’s first and only administration spent considerable time and energy on tearing the guts out of a treaty aimed at preventing migratory bird deaths related to fossil energy activities among various other circumstances.

Oh well, water under the bridge. Migratory birds are all but certain to get a share of President Joe Biden’s love for all things sustainable, and new strategies have already emerged for reducing wind power’s relatively small share of bird impacts.

Back in 2003, for example, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory suggested that simply applying different colors and patterns to wind turbine blades could make a difference. That formed the basis for a long term study that recently demonstrated a significant reduction in risk of collision, especially for raptors.

The US Fish And Wildlife Service’s Avian Radar Project indicates that adjustments to wind turbine locations, hours of operation, and lighting can also reduce risks. Automatic shutdown systems triggered by cameras and other remote devices can help, and researchers are beginning to study how today’s generation of larger, more powerful turbines is also contributing to risk reduction.

Follow me on Twitter @TinaMCasey.

Photo: Energy Vault gravity storage system via Enel Green Power.


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Sam Altman on OpenAI’s $850 billion in planned buildouts: ‘People are worried. I totally get that’

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Sam Altman on OpenAI's 0 billion in planned buildouts: 'People are worried. I totally get that'

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

ABILENE, Texas — Sam Altman stood on a patch of hot Texas dirt, the kind that turns to dust storms on dry days and mud slicks after a sudden rain. Behind him stretched the outlines of what will soon be a massive data center complex in the west-central part of the state, where heavy wind often meets extreme heat.

It was a fitting backdrop for the OpenAI CEO to unveil what he calls the largest infrastructure push of the modern internet era: a 17-gigawatt buildout in partnership with Oracle, Nvidia, and SoftBank.

In less than 48 hours, OpenAI has announced commitments equal to 17 nuclear plants or about nine Hoover Dams. The plan will require the amount of electricity needed to power more than 13 million U.S. homes.

The scale is staggering, even for a company that’s raised a record amount of private market cash and seen its valuation swell to $500 billion. At roughly $50 billion per site, OpenAI’s projects add up to about $850 billion in spending, nearly half of the $2 trillion global AI infrastructure surge HSBC now forecasts.

Altman understands the concern. But he rejects the idea that the spending spree is overkill.

“People are worried. I totally get that. I think that’s a very natural thing,” Altman told CNBC on Tuesday from the site of the first of its mega data centers in Abilene. “We are growing faster than any business I’ve ever heard of before.”

Altman insisted that the building boom is in response to soaring demand, highlighting the tenfold jump in ChatGPT usage over the past 18 months. He said a network of supercomputing facilities is what’s required to maximize the capabilities of AI.

Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank unveil $400 billion Stargate data center expansions

“This is what it takes to deliver AI,” Altman said. “Unlike previous technological revolutions or previous versions of the internet, there’s so much infrastructure that’s required, and this is a small sample of it.”

The biggest bottleneck for AI isn’t money or chips — it’s electricity. Altman has put money into nuclear companies because he sees their steady, concentrated output as one of the only energy sources strong enough to meet AI’s enormous demand.

Altman led a $500 million funding round into fusion firm Helion Energy to build a demonstration reactor, and backed Oklo, a fission company he took public last year through his own SPAC. 

Critics warn of a bubble, pointing to how companies like Nvidia, Oracle, Broadcom and Microsoft have each added hundreds of billions of dollars in market value on the back of tie-ups with OpenAI, which is burning cash. Nvidia and Microsoft are now worth a combined $8.1 trillion, or equal to about 13.5% of the S&P 500.

Skeptics also say the system looks like a circular financing model. OpenAI is committing hundreds of billions of dollars to projects that rely on partners like Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank. Those companies are simultaneously investing in the same projects and then getting paid back through chip sales and data center leases.

Friar has a different perspective, arguing that the entire ecosystem is banding together to meet a historic surge in compute needs. Big tech booms, Friar noted, have always required this kind of bold, coordinated infrastructure buildout.

Altman added that such cycles of overinvesting and underinvesting have marked every past technological revolution. Some people, he said, will surely feel the pain.

“People will get burned on overinvesting and people also get burned on underinvesting and not having enough capacity,” he said. “Smart people will get overexcited, and people will lose a lot of money. People will make a lot of money. But I am confident that long term, the value of this technology is going to be gigantic to society.”

‘More and more demand’

OpenAI’s partners are betting big on that future. Oracle is even reshaping its leadership around it. On Monday, the company promoted Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia to CEO roles, replacing Safra Catz. Magouyrk ran cloud infrastructure and Sicilia was president of Oracle Industries.

“When you think about why make a transition now, it’s really around Oracle’s being set up for success,” Magouyrk told CNBC. “I only see more and more demand from the end users … what looks like near infinite demand for technology.”

Nvidia is fronting equity alongside its chips, including the new Vera Rubin accelerators meant to power the next wave of AI workloads. The Abilene facility is being leased by Oracle.

“Folks like Oracle are putting their balance sheets to work to create these incredible data centers you see behind us,” OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in an interview on site.

She explained that OpenAI will pay operating expenses for the data centers when they’re online, while Nvidia’s investments are getting the project up and running.

“But importantly, they will get paid for all those chips as those chips get deployed,” Friar said, referring to the arrangement with Nvidia.

OpenAI's Sarah Friar: 'Full ecosystem' needs to come together to address compute crunch

Friar, who previously helped take Block public as CFO and then guided Nextdoor to the public market as CEO, pointed to the balancing act between equity, debt and operating expenses. She said that the facilities breaking ground now are aimed at bringing new capacity online next year.

“But then it’s about what gets built for 2027, 2028, and 2029,” she said. “What we see today is a massive compute crunch. There’s not enough compute to do all the things that AI can do, and so we need to get it started — and we need to do it as a full ecosystem.”

As for OpenAI’s long-term relationship with Microsoft, “They’re a major partner,” Friar said, adding that the company will continue to be a key supplier of compute capacity.

She hinted that more developments are on the way with Microsoft, and that she’s “pleased that we are where we are, but not fully ready to announce everything yet.”

In Friar’s current role, the numbers are much bigger than they ever were at the two companies she took public. Eventually OpenAI investors will expect returns on their hefty investments, but Altman said that the question of an IPO is “complicated.”

“I assume that someday we will be a public company,” he told CNBC. “I have mixed feelings about it … for now, we’re certainly able to raise a lot of capital in private markets.”

He said that being public could make long-term investments harder, given the need to meet Wall Street’s expectations on a quarterly basis. But it would open up access to a broader base of investors, he said.

“I think that the world should, if people want to, own shares in OpenAI. I think that’s awesome, and I want that to happen,” Altman said.

In the near term, the story is about many billions of dollars plowed into chips and data centers in places like Abilene, and eventually in New Mexico, Ohio and elsewhere.

But OpenAI isn’t just about infrastructure. In May, the company made the stunning announcement that it had acquired Jony Ive’s nascent devices startup for about $6.4 billion. Bringing in the designer of the iPhone and the rest of Apple’s most popular products wasn’t an accident.

While in Texas, Altman hinted at hardware that could reshape how people use computers in their everyday lives.

The OpenAI CEO said computers have never before been able to truly “understand and think,” and that breakthrough creates the chance to invent an entirely new way of using them.

He cautioned that it will take time before OpenAI has anything ready to ship. Even when it gets there, the company plans to release only a “small family of devices,” he said. But the potential, Altman said, is “something big” and worth pursuing.

WATCH: OpenAI CFO: Need partners like Oracle and Microsoft to meet demand

OpenAI CFO: Need partners like Oracle and Microsoft to meet demand

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OpenAI’s first data center in $500B Stargate project is open in Texas, with sites coming in New Mexico and Ohio

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OpenAI's first data center in 0B Stargate project is open in Texas, with sites coming in New Mexico and Ohio

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar: 'More compute, more revenue' in response to concern on Oracle, Nvidia deals

ABILENE, Texas — OpenAI and Oracle are betting big on America’s AI future, bringing online the flagship site of the $500 billion Stargate program, a sweeping infrastructure push to secure the compute needed to power the future of artificial intelligence.

The debut site in Abilene, Texas, about 180 miles west of Dallas, is up and running, filled with Oracle Cloud infrastructure and racks of Nvidia chips.

The data center, which is being leased by Oracle, is one of the most notable physical landmarks to emerge from an unprecedented boom in demand for infrastructure to power AI. Over $2 trillion in AI infrastructure has been planned around the world, according to an HSBC estimate this week.

OpenAI is leading the way.

In addition to the $500 billion Stargate project, the startup on Monday announced an equity investment deal with Nvidia that will add an estimated $500 billion worth of data centers in the coming years. Since 2019, Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, providing loads of access to Azure credits. Additionally, OpenAI contracts with smaller cloud companies for additional compute capacity and help operating its infrastructure.

One building on the Abilene site is operational while another is nearly complete. The campus has the potential to ultimately scale past a gigawatt of capacity, OpenAI finance chief Sarah Friar told CNBC. That would be enough electricity to power about 750,000 U.S. homes.

The data center construction plans are important enough that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang personally engaged in last-minute negotiations with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the weekend to get in on the action, CNBC reported earlier on Tuesday.

“People are starting to recognize just the sheer scale that will be required,” Friar said. “We’re just getting going here in Abilene, Texas, but you’ll see this all around the United States and beyond.”

The scale of the project’s construction was necessary to supply the amount of compute required to operate OpenAI’s models, Friar said.

“What we see today is a massive compute crunch,” she said. “There’s not enough compute to do all the things that AI can do.”

OpenAI's Sarah Friar: 'Full ecosystem' needs to come together to address compute crunch

A bold bet on AI infrastructure

OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, which is helping fund the project, announced on Tuesday five additional Stargate sites across Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and an additional unnamed site in the Midwest. That brings the size of the initiative to nearly 7 gigawatts and more than $400 billion of investment over the next three years, which includes an existing $300 billion agreement between OpenAI and Oracle.

While companies like Oracle are helping fund the data center construction, OpenAI will ultimately be the one to pay for the computing capacity as an operating expense, Friar said. Although Nvidia is putting in equity to jumpstart the project, Friar said the chipmaker will get paid for all graphics processing units (GPUs) that it provides as those chips get deployed.

Friar said OpenAI will generate $13 billion in revenue this year, and that the company plans to help pay for the construction using its own cash flow and debt financing.

The Stargate name will refer to all OpenAI infrastructure projects going forward, CNBC reported this week. Together with CoreWeave and other partners, the companies say they are ahead of schedule to meet their full 10-gigawatt commitment by the end of 2025.

Friar told CNBC the shovels going into the ground today are laying foundations for compute that won’t come online until 2026, starting with Nvidia next-generation Vera Rubin chips.

Data center buildings are under construction during a tour of the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.

Shelby Tauber | Reuters

“No one in the history of man built data centers this fast,” Friar said, adding that the entire ecosystem has to work together to meet demand.

Critics have questioned the circular funding behind Stargate — OpenAI committing hundreds of billions of dollars to projects while suppliers like Nvidia are also investing directly into those same buildouts.

Friar said history shows that technology booms require bold infrastructure bets.

“When the internet was getting started, people kept feeling like, ‘Oh, we’re over-building, there’s too much,'” Friar said. “Look where we are today, right?”

The project also carries political weight. OpenAI and Oracle first unveiled Stargate alongside President Donald Trump at the White House in January. Friar called Trump “the president of this AI era,” pointing to Washington’s role in framing the technology as both an economic engine and a national security priority. Trump was briefed on the Nvidia investment into OpenAI during a state visit to the U.K. earlier this month.

Oracle says the project will employ more than 6,000 construction workers daily and deliver nearly 1,700 long-term jobs.

In a paper published Tuesday about OpenAI’s infrastructure plans, the company wrote that its data center buildout could help reshape the American power grid with new technologies and help the U.S. exert global influence.

— CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this story.

WATCH: OpenAI CFO: Need partners like Oracle and Microsoft to meet demand

OpenAI CFO: Need partners like Oracle and Microsoft to meet demand

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Honda is slashing over $20,000 off the Prologue right now

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Honda is slashing over ,000 off the Prologue right now

How about over $20,000 in savings on a new SUV? For the next week, Honda is currently offering over $20,000 off 2025 Prologue models with stackable savings.

Honda Prologue buyers can snag more than $20,000 off

Honda has made its electric SUV even more tempting for the last week of September. Until September 30, when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit is set to expire, Honda is offering generous discounts of more than $20,000 in some states.

The 2025 Prologue is $17,000 off nationwide, plus Honda is offering 0% interest for six years. That’s hard to find for any vehicle, whether it’s electric or gas-powered.

The deal includes $9,500 in financing bonuses and the potential $7,500 EV tax credit. On a six-year loan for a $50,000 Prologue, online car research firm CarsDirect estimates the financing deal would cost about $33,000, before taxes and fees.

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With trade-in offers in California and other ZEV states, you can score up to $20,300 off the 2025 Honda Prologue.

Honda-Prologue-$20,000-off
2025 Honda Prologue at a Tesla Supercharger (Source: Honda)

But, there’s gotta be a catch, right? Well, for one, the offer ends in a week on September 30, the same day the federal $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles expires.

While the deals on the 2025 model year are expiring, the 2026 Honda Prologue is already set to arrive with discounts of up to $9,000.

Honda-Prologue-$20,000-off
The interior of the 2025 Honda Prologue Elite (Source: Honda)

A notice sent to dealers (via CarsDirect) said that the 2026 model year will debut with a $6,000 lease or finance offer through Honda Financial Services (HFS). The incentive bulletin said an additional $3,000 conquest bonus will be offered, bringing the total savings to $9,000 on 2026 models.

2025 Honda Prologue trim Starting Price* Starting Price After
Tax Credit
*
EPA Range
(miles)
EX (FWD) $47,400 $39,900 308
EX (AWD) $50,400 $42,900 294
Touring (FWD) $51.700 $44,200 308
Touring (AWD) $54,700 $47,200 294
Elite (AWD) $57,900 $50,400 283
2025 Honda Prologue prices and range by trim (*Does not include $1,450 D&H fee)

Interestingly, the offer for the 2026 Prologue is available until November 3, suggesting Honda may continue offering discounts even after the $7,500 tax credit ends.

Honda has yet to announce 2026 Prologue prices publicly, but it’s expected to start at approximately the same $47,400 MSRP as the 2025 model year. With the government incentives set to expire, it could be even less.

Those of you looking for other deals ahead of the tax credit expiration might want to check out the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 with leases starting from $149 per month. The Chevy Equinox EV, or “America’s most affordable 315+ mile range EV,” is available with leases starting at $249 per month. Volkswagen is offering some of the lowest EV lease prices, with the ID.4 available starting at just $129 per month.

Ready to test drive the Prologue for yourself? We’re here to help. You can use our link to find deals on the Honda Prologue in your area (trusted partner).

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