Those of us that have windmills around our area have all watched them erected. Big trucks, BIG cranes, rebuilt roads and lots of time & promises. Slowly & carefully setting each piece in place. We have also been told that when the windmills reach their life expectancy, they would be dismantled & recycled. Some of us have apparently been naïve about those last 2 steps. I kind of visualized the same cranes coming in & carefully removing parts & taking them back to be sold, or updated, or renewed in some manner.

Well, this video came as quite a shock to me. Maybe some of you have seen this manner of recycling these renewable energy things before. This video was taken just a few days ago, somewhere in Illinois. Not sure where. The video looks legit...not minituarized Hollywood stuff, though it sure could be. Again, this is not what I mistakenly mentally pictured for recyling.

The video is about 8 minutes. Make sure you stay to the end so you can see some closeups of the intricate work of lowering windmills at the end of their life, or whatever the reason was. 

Here is link to YouTube of windmill dismantling in Illinois. There might be a short commercial in the beginning which you can jump out of. Comments on AgTalk would be interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYfIIoutCE8