ARE THEY MILESTONES IF YOU CROSS THEM EVERY FEW FEET?:

Siemens Gamesa announced the launch of its RecycleableBlade on Tuesday, as a "milestone" step towards its goal of making whole wind turbines fully recyclable, by 2040.

For now, the company has produced the first six 81-meter long recyclable blades at its manufacturing plant in Aalborg, ready for commercial use.

The blades look likely to make their operational debut at the 342MW Kaskasi offshore wind farm, which is in the early stages of construction in the German North Sea, as part of an agreement with developer RWE. The project is expected to be operational in mid-2022.

Siemens said it had also made deals with French company EDF Renewables and German wind project developer, wpd, both of which had agreed to install sets of the RecyclableBlades at one of their future offshore wind farms.

The production of fully recyclable wind turbine blades is a milestone for the global wind industry, which - like the solar and battery industries - has been scrambling to find sustainable end-of-life solutions to match with the enormous and escalating uptake of the technology.

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