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After getting the world’s first offshore wind turbine with recyclable blades up and spinning in August, Siemens Gamesa has just launched its RecyclableBlade for onshore wind power projects.

The Siemens Gamesa RecyclableBlade for offshore was launched in September 2021 and installed at the 342 megawatt Kaskasi offshore wind farm in Germany in July 2022. 

Siemens Gamesa has not yet said which sizes the recyclable onshore blades will be available in or when, nor how many recyclable onshore blades it’s produced so far.

The Spanish-German wind engineering giant calls its recyclable blade technology RecyclableBlade. Wind turbine blades are made of a number of materials embedded in resin. Siemens Gamesa explains:

Separating the resin, fiberglass, and wood, among others, is achieved through using a mild acid solution. The materials can then go into the circular economy, creating new products like suitcases or flat-screen casings without the need to call on more raw resources. 

Photo: Siemens Gamesa

Siemens Gamesa says it plans to make all of its wind turbine blades fully recyclable by 2030, and all of its wind turbines fully recyclable by 2040.

This technology needs to be rolled out quickly as wind power ramps up globally: According to a 2021 study by Aubryn Cooperman, a wind energy analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and colleagues called “Wind turbine blade material in the United States: Quantities, costs, and end-of-life options”:

Assuming a 20-year turbine lifetime, the cumulative blade waste in 2050 is approximately 2.2 million tons. This value represents approximately 1% of remaining landfill capacity by volume, or 0.2% by mass.

In Europe, Siemens Gamesa is working with industry body WindEurope and other major industry players to call for a Europe-wide ban on landfill for blades.

Read more: The world’s largest offshore wind farm is now fully operational


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Lucid will begin delivering the more affordable Gravity Touring SUV next month

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The lower-priced Lucid Gravity Touring SUV will begin rolling out next month. Lucid (LCID) confirmed the more affordable trim is still on track as it ramps up output.

Lucid Gravity Touring SUV deliveries begin in December

After reporting third-quarter earnings this week, Lucid’s interim CEO, Marc Winterhoff, admitted that Gravity production is “not where we want to be” after facing several headwinds over the past few months.

Lucid has been working to overcome a number of “extraordinary headwinds,” Winterhoff said, that threatened to shut down production several times throughout the year.

The company is working to overcome three industry-wide supply chain shortages: magnets, aluminum, and chips. Although Lucid is still working to overcome the hurdles, it expects the Gravity to account for the majority of production and deliveries in Q4 for the first time.

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“October deliveries are climbing, especially for Gravity,” Winterhoff said, adding that Lucid is confident Q4 will be a turning point.

That will still include the lower-priced Gravity Touring trim, which Lucid has been promising to launch for over a year now.

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Lucid Gravity Grand Touring in Aurora Green (Source: Lucid)

Lucid’s head of communications, Nick Twork, confirmed the company is still planning to deliver the Gravity Touring, starting next month. Twork replied to a user on X, asking whether Lucid is on track to deliver the Touring trim in December, and said, “Yes!”

The Lucid Gravity Grand Touring is currently the only model available, starting at $94,900. Lucid said the Touring trim will start at $79,900, or $15,000 cheaper.

Lucid has yet to reveal the full specs for the lower-priced Gravity Touring. The Grand Touring delivers an impressive range of up to 450 miles, is faster than most sports cars, and boasts up to 120 cubic feet of cargo space (more than the Ford Explorer). We should learn more soon. Check back for the latest.

Want to test one out for yourself? We can help you get started. You can use the links below to find Lucid Air and Gravity models in your area.

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MP Materials CEO warns investors to approach suddenly hot rare earths industry with caution

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MP Materials CEO warns investors to approach suddenly hot rare earths industry with caution

MP Materials' shares slide in overtime on quarterly revenue miss

Pentagon-backed MP Materials warned investors this week to approach other rare earths projects with caution, pointing to the industry’s difficult economics.

Stocks of U.S. rare earth companies have had wild swings in recent months as investors have speculated that the Trump administration might strike more deals along the lines of its landmark agreement with MP. Smaller retail traders have gotten involved in the stocks with the VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF up 60% this year.

The Defense Department in July took an equity stake in MP, set a price floor for the company, and inked an offtake agreement with the rare earth miner and magnet maker in an effort to roll back China’s dominance of the industry.

CEO James Litinsky said he didn’t want “people to get burned” amid the speculation. Litinsky cautioned investors “to just be very clear-eyed about what the actual structural economics are amidst all the excitement.”

“The vast majority of projects being promoted today simply will not work at virtually any price,” Litinksy said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call Thursday evening.

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VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF, YTD

MP views itself as “America’s national champion,” Litinsky said. MP is the only active rare earth miner in the U.S. and has offtake agreements with Apple and General Motors in addition to the Pentagon.

“We have structural advantage because we’re fully vertically integrated,” the CEO said. “We’re years and billions ahead of others.”

It takes years for the best rare earth producers to ramp up and stabilize their output and economics “despite what some promoters might suggest,” Litinksy said. Australia’s Lynas took about a decade and MP will reach normalized production in about three years from the start of commissioning, he said.

MP Materials CEO on U.S. government deal: We can truly solve the rare earths magnetics crisis

The White House is “not ruling out other deals with equity stakes or price floors as we did with MP Materials, but that doesn’t mean every initiative we take would be in the shape of the MP deal,” a Trump administration official told CNBC in September.

Litinsky described the rare earth industry as close to a “structural oligopoly,” a system where there are just a few major players. The government investing in a dozens of sites and businesses wouldn’t necessarily set up a supply chain, he said.

The Trump administration should continue to encourage private capital to flow into the industry through loans, grants and other support, Litinsky said. There is room for “a lot of other players and supply” but the market will require “materially higher prices” for the industry’s structural challenges to change, he said.

“If X dollars of capital can stimulate two or three X in private capital, they should be doing that as much as possible,” Litinsky said.

The CEO indicated that he views MP as a forerunner that will help create the conditions for a broader market that is not dependent on China over time.

“In the very short term the administration has made sure that we have a successful national champion in MP,” Litinsky said. “We are going to sort of pave the path if you will to then figure out how there’s much broader supply coming online.”

Rare earths are crucial for making magnets that are key inputs in U.S. weapons platforms, semiconductor manufacturing, electric vehicles, clean energy technology and consumer electronics. Beijing dominates the global supply chain and the U.S. is dependent on China for imports.

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Wheel-E Podcast: CA e-bike voucher dies, Zero Motorcycles scooter, VMAX review, and more

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Wheel-E Podcast: CA e-bike voucher dies, Zero Motorcycles scooter, VMAX review, and more

This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes a new e-bike model from Tenways, California kills off its e-bike voucher program, a review of the new VMAX VX2 Hub e-scooter, Zero launches a scooter, NIU’s got a new micro-car, and more.

The Wheel-E podcast returns every two weeks on Electrek’s YouTube channel, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.

As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the Wheel-E podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 9:00 a.m. ET (or the video after 10:00 a.m. ET):

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