What’s Hip Hapnin?

Have you signed up yet for the new Spanish Fork City curbside recycling program?

They Need 2000 people to voluntarily sign up and then the program will begin. At the time I wrote this post there were just under 500. Not bad because the program was just announced about a week ago.

Click Here to Sign up for the Spanish Fork City Curbside Recycling Program

Here is a PDF with the Details of what Items you can recycle in Spanish fork

They will pick up at your curb most of the items you would expect: Paper, Plastics, Aluminum Cans, Tin Cans, Cardboard and I thought this was a little unusual “Small Appliances” and “Pots and Pans”

They won’t pick up yard waste but the city already has a program for that: Spanish Fork City Compost and Yard Waste

Here is a PDF with the presentation made by Spanish Fork city on Recycling.

Ryan Robinson sent me this picture. He is a Helicopter Pilot and has a cool RC business he is running. This picture was taken from a Remote Controlled Helicopter Airplane that he has mounted a digital camera on. Pretty Amazing shot and what a hobby - that is the ultimate mash-up “Remote Control Photography” celebrity weddings will never be the same.

As you can see all 9 of the windmills are installed but not yet operational. They look really cool and you can see them from almost anywhere in the south half of Utah Valley.

Somebody asked me in the comments where the power is going and if you can choose to buy green power. Apparently there is a rumor that the power is being sold to people in California.

This is what I know: The power is being put on the grid just like power from any other source. What does that mean? Even if you wanted too you couldn’t buy totally green enegry. Rocky Mountain power is buying all of it so if you live in Spanish Fork you won’t see any of this power. If you pay your electric bill to rocky mountain power you will see some of it. But it will me mixed with “dirty” power sources like coal and natural gas.

Interestingly I found out that Spanish Fork residents are getting some of their power from a windfarm in Wyoming which means you don’t have to feel totally guilty when you turn on the lights.

These are 2 megawatt windmills so if everything is running as planned they should be able to power about 5000 homes.

Going on the Grid for rocky mountain power - Utah Power and Light Orem, Southern Utah, Salt Lake City

some of you may know this already but wind turbines are currently being installed in the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. I went up there last week with my son Ashton, he is 2.5 and LOVES windmills. I am 29.5 and I love windmills too so it was perfect.

I heard there were going to be 9 total - I only counted 8 but there could be one more that I missed. As you can see in the picture only two are finished but don’t appear to be spinning yet. I loved this picture, strip mine the land and then once it has been sufficiently abused throw up something green. Utah has to be the only place this would ever happen, well truthfully this would probably happen everywhere but Oregon. I am hoping the City or the power company turns this land under the windmills into some kind of park it could be a really beautiful location with the river flowing right through the middle.

This is a good shot of all of the poles the one closest to the camera has the generator sitting on the ground next to it. Just to give you some scale that is about the size of an average camping trailer.

Here is a picture of Ashton standing in the base of one of the blades. He is about 3 feet tall. I don’t know if he thought this was cool, but I sure did. Growing up White Trash I have a similar picture but I am sitting in the wheel of Big Foot at a Monster Truck Rally. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world when I was little.

I wanted you too see how big the bolts are. These are used to hold the blades to the Generator.

Each blade has a long row of these tiny fins. I am not sure what they do but this is my geeky guess. In the morning the wind blows very hard out of this Canyon. They have been experimenting with smaller windmills for years at the mouth of the canyon and they always break because the wind is consistently too strong. These larger windmills have Rotor Hubs at the base of the blades so they can be rotated to reduce drag. I think these fins help reduce the drag as well. They should also help reduce the noise which is good because there are houses about 1/4 mile away. If somebody actually knows why they are there and can debunk this guess go for it. Your actual knowledge would be appreciated.

I thought these would be made from aluminum but when I looked closely it looked like sandwiched layers of fiberglass or something, I looked up what it really is and this is what Wikipedia said:

Modern rotor blades (up to 126 m (413 ft) diameter) are made of lightweight glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) with an epoxy or polyester resin matrix

Here is the Wikipedia Article on Wind Turbine Design

I threw this picture in because I thought it was cool that the deer didn’t care are all that I was there.

Google Maps Satellite View Of Wind Turbine Location

Google Maps Street View Of Wind Turbine Location This is the view from highway 6 as you are going toward Denver through Spanish Fork Canyon.