The News
Paladin EnviroTech recovers about 40 tonnes of rare earth magnets a year from retired US wind turbines, Rare Earth Exchanges reported. It is one of several recyclers mining old turbine generators as manufacturers look for magnet supply outside China, The Wall Street Journal reported.
One recycler estimates some generators hold nearly a ton of rare earths worth close to $100,000, according to the Journal.
The paper called the recycling ventures “part of a drive to loosen China’s chokehold on the critical minerals.”
The details
The supply is real but small. At the Iowa wind farm Paladin draws on, only one turbine in five carries rare earth magnets.
Only 20% of the turbines at Iowa’s Highland wind farm, where Paladin sources generators, contain rare earth magnets, according to Rare Earth Exchanges.
More than 12,400 US turbines have been fully decommissioned, most of them older than 30 years and smaller than 200 kW, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers found. About 7,500 more are at least 20 years old.
US plants that can take the magnets apart are only now opening.
Cyclic Materials opened a magnet recycling plant in Mesa, Arizona, sized for up to 25,000 metric tons of magnet-bearing products a year, Electrek reported in September. “This facility delivers new capacity for the US to keep resource-rich products here and build a domestic rare earth supply,” CEO Ahmad Ghahreman said.
Critical Materials Recycling of Boone, Iowa, won $500,000 in the Energy Department’s wind turbine recycling prize for an acid-free process developed with Ames National Laboratory.
A DOE-led report published in January 2025 found that as of 2023, US infrastructure could not recycle rare earths from permanent magnets at scale.
China’s export rules are why the timing matters. Its one-year pause on its widest rare earth controls ends Nov 10, 2026, while licensing on seven medium and heavy rare earths stays in force.
The pause covers measures that expanded the list of controlled elements and reached foreign-made products containing Chinese-origin rare earths, per regulatory consultancy CIRS.
Case-by-case licences still apply to samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium, including their magnet materials, Mining Technology reported.
China’s magnet exports have largely returned to pre-control levels, Silverado Policy Accelerator found. Shipments to the US reached typical levels in September for the second time in three months.
What’s next
China’s pause on its wider controls expires Nov 10. Cyclic plans a South Carolina campus that adds rare earth refining to magnet recovery, due to open in 2028.
(Photo: Thuringius / Wikimedia Commons)
