One recycler estimated nearly a ton of rare earths worth close to $100,000

A few recycling ventures are betting that the quickest route to new rare-earth metal supply runs through the junkyard, The Wall Street Journal’s Ed Ballard wrote. Retired wind turbines are a particular target because their room-size generators can, in some cases, contain nearly a ton of rare earths worth close to $100,000, according to one recycler’s estimate.

Rare-earth metals such as dysprosium and neodymium are used in magnets in electric motors. Thousands of retirement-age turbines are waiting to be harvested as America’s wind industry ages. Extracting the metals is not straightforward: dismantling turbines is cumbersome, and recyclers face the challenge of separating materials cost-effectively so rare earths can be isolated, ground up and turned into metal for new magnets.

President Trump announced Saturday that Audi plans to build its first-ever U.S. factory in Macon, Georgia. The Wall Street Journal described the announcement as the latest move by a global automaker to focus on American buyers as sales fall off elsewhere in the world. Trump said the plant would produce 200,000 cars annually, construction would begin next month, and he pegged the investment at $4.2 billion.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Patrick George, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner confirmed that the plant will make Audi’s largest current SUVs: the Q7, Q8 and recently announced Q9. Audi evaluated more than 70 locations, Döllner said, and chose Georgia for its energy supplies and proximity to corporate cousin Volkswagen’s supply-chain network across the South.

Cross-border freight conditions were also documented at Iran’s borders. Trucks were waiting at Iran’s borders with Turkey, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan as of Sept. 29, with delays typically running to 20 days, according to the chairman of the Iranian International Transportation Companies Association.

The industrial-investment picture included two South Korean-backed U.S. shipyard projects. President Trump has called for a new “Maritime Golden Age” by expanding American shipbuilding capacity, while The Wall Street Journal’s Timothy W. Martin wrote that the United States needs help from allies to pull off the turnaround. Martin identified America’s most ambitious project to date as involving South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean, which purchased a shipyard in Philadelphia about two years ago.

Hanwha Ocean’s main Korean shipyard is bigger and more advanced than any facility in the United States, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since its December 2024 acquisition of the Philadelphia site, the company has spent around $350 million on upgrades and plans to spend billions more. Hanwha Ocean also has approved an additional $400 million in investments through the end of next year.

As part of its trade deal last year with Trump, the South Korean government pledged $150 billion to improve U.S. shipbuilding. Last week, HD Hyundai, a major Korean shipbuilder, created a joint venture with Kiewit, an American construction company, to build an advanced U.S. shipyard starting from next year, with full-scale operations targeted by 2029. Financial terms and the planned site’s specific location were not disclosed.

Consolidation and the creation of modern logistics were the subjects of an excerpt from Marc Levinson’s The UPS Man: James E. Casey and the Creation of Modern Logistics:

“Consolidation seems a simple step, but it distinguished the company from its competitors. It transformed American Messenger from a traditional messenger service into a different type of business, a delivery service.”

— Marc Levinson

The report is by Mark R. Long, editor of WSJ Logistics Report. The team also includes Liz Young and Paul Berger.