Spanish Fork Windmills

[DiscGo]

I was driving through SpanishFork canyon this weekend and I saw these Windmills. I was surprised by them, because I was just out there a little over a month ago and didn't see a thing.




Sorry the picture is not better.

[rockgremlin]

Kind of an eyesore IMO. Are they really generating enough electricity to justify the visual pollution?

[erossite]

I had the same experience. I couldn't believe how quickly they have gone up. Are they running now? How much do they cost? How much energy do they produce?

[DiscGo]

I had the same experience. I couldn't believe how quickly they have gone up. Are they running now? How much do they cost? How much energy do they produce?

They just finished making them last week and they are not running yet.

Kind of an eyesore IMO. Are they really generating enough electricity to justify the visual pollution?

They really do muck up a beautiful area.

[BruteForce]

It's my understanding that they generate quite a large amount of electricity, and other than visual pollution, they produce no harmful output.

I'd like to see more of those than smoke stacks..

[Scout Master]

I agree
I would rather see Windmills than a Nuclear, Garbage burning, or Coal fired power plant

[FROGGER]

Much better than the smoke stacks and pollution IMO.... This just goes to show you can never please everyone... the same people bitching about these would be bitching about anything placed there..

They have been building these for the last few months though, .

[rockgremlin]

This just goes to show you can never please everyone... the same people bitching about these would be bitching about anything placed there..

Ya, you're damn right. I would be bitching even more if they woulda thrown up some coal burning stacks instead. I think ANYTHING at that location looks bad. I wonder what this is doing for the price of real estate/homes in Spanish Fork? "And looking out the east facing french doors, you have a wonderful view of the newly installed windmills..."

[Alex]

There was a story on NPR about it and the locals complain more about the noise from the blades breaking the wind than the eye sore. A lot of them actually liked it.

A couple of locals who live close to windmills said they can hear the "woofing" noise all night long.

[tanya]

Wolfing is a nice sound to go to sleep by if it helps clean up the air.

[rockgremlin]

Wolfing is a nice sound to go to sleep by if it helps clean up the air.

That might be easier said than done.

[tanya]

Wolfing is a nice sound to go to sleep by if it helps clean up the air.

That might be easier said than done.

I am an insomniac but a constant rhythm actually helps me go to sleep. Maybe because I quit thinking and just listen?

[greyhair biker]

These things must be contagious...you should see the windmill farms popping up along I-80 going east from Evanston, there are hundreds of em' !...kinda cool really but then I don't live next to them. No one does up here really, except for deer, antelope and ranging cattle

[bbennett]

This just goes to show you can never please everyone... the same people bitching about these would be bitching about anything placed there..

Ya, you're damn right. I would be bitching even more if they woulda thrown up some coal burning stacks instead. I think ANYTHING at that location looks bad. I wonder what this is doing for the price of real estate/homes in Spanish Fork? "And looking out the east facing french doors, you have a wonderful view of the newly installed windmills..."

As much as it may seem like an eyesore to place the windmills there at the mouth of such a beautiful canyon, it was really the best place that they could have put them. When I used to fly here, I could always rely on strong morning winds at the Spanish Fork airport.

As I understand it, this is due to whats known as a "mountain breeze" and the funneling effect of the canyon.
Basically, after sunset and throughout the night, the lower level valley and canyon walls cool at a much greater rate than those at higher elevations. These lower temperatures result in lower ambient pressure than that which is present at higher elevations. In the atmospheres never ending quest for equilibrium, air always flows from high pressure to low pressure (known as pressure gradient).
By sunrise and the associated radiational heating, all of that warmer, high pressure air flows down the mountainside, funnels through the canyon and results in steady, relatively high winds (usually about 25 knots at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon). This is why, if you know anyone with a home up there, they are also always complaining about their garbage cans being blown over and down the street.
Please keep in mind that it's been a while since I had to study these types of things but I believe that I'm remembering it correctly.

[FROGGER]

This just goes to show you can never please everyone... the same people bitching about these would be bitching about anything placed there..

Ya, you're damn right. I would be bitching even more if they woulda thrown up some coal burning stacks instead. I think ANYTHING at that location looks bad. I wonder what this is doing for the price of real estate/homes in Spanish Fork? "And looking out the east facing french doors, you have a wonderful view of the newly installed windmills..."

Thank you for proving my point... real estate prices being effected by them should not be a concern, there is a neighbor hood directly to the west of them but the windmills would have far less impact on prices than the huge factory/ warehouse and dynamite plant...

[Udink]

I don't think the windmills in Spanish Fork Canyon are any more an eyesore than the highway, railroad tracks, power lines, diversion dam, enormous warehouse, or enormous gravel pit are. It's not like they put the windmills in the nice part of the canyon--they're in the bottom of a gravel pit that's 1/3-mile wide, next to a warehouse that's also 1/3-mile long. You can only see them for a brief instant when driving down the highway.

I think it's good that somebody's doing something other than burning coal in Utah. Here's some info on the SF Canyon project directly from Wasatch Wind (so take that for what it's worth).

http://www.wasatchwind.com/sfwp.html

[Jaxx]

I saw them when we went to Goblin Valley a few weeks ago. I thought they looked really cool. They weren't running. I didn't feel like they made it uglier. I thought it looked cool with the mountains in the backdrop. I'm kindof wierd though. Of course I don't live by them and hear the noise of the blades.

[LOAH]

I can't believe people would have any gripes about utilizing the wonderful wind resource known as Spanish Fork Canyon. As mentioned earlier, the area is already uglied by the explosives plant, the JC Penny Warehouse, the Diversion just upstream, the tracks, and the highway. The highway would be much louder than the props and the wind probably drowns that out anyway.

The first thing I thought of was how great it was that someone was harnessing the constant wind there. I also thought that putting up a wind farm at the point of the mountain would be a great idea.

Complaining about it being an eyesore is pretty weak compared to a big ugly power plant. Just keep driving down that road to find those.

What ticks me off about what's happening in or near Sp. Fork Canyon is the development of the area just before the red narrows. You know, that area with the nice Goblinesque rock formations and caves? Well somebody decided that it would be the perfect candidate for some buildings. BASTARDS! They couldn't pick another spot? They had to choose the most unique area (and most beautiful IMO) of the canyon to foul?

People suck!

Anyhow, I don't mind the windmills and I think it's a wonderful leap in the right direction.

Next, I'd like to see some sun farms pop up. Apparently, the technology for solar panels has been coming along in leaps and bounds, making it more cost efficient to produce solar panels and they're producing more energy per square inch than ever before.

I'm all for renewable energy with zero negative output.

[denaliguide]

windmills? they should have built something that the community could really use. like a ....... ummm...... oh... i know a ......... Costco or a Walmart.

[sparker1]

I haven't seen the SF windmills, but have seen many others around the country. They usually look good to me, especially back east where the windmills line the green hillside. Those suckers are huge, but there are no houses close enough to hear the noise. Canyons are frequently used because the wind is relatively constant. The canyon (I forget its name) between Los Angeles and Palm Springs has a ton of windmills because it has the most constant wind in the US. Of course, it blows all the smog into Palm Springs, but what can you do? Southern Wyoming is also noted for steady winds, I believe.

In Quebec, they experimented with a vertical axis windmill, but it has been taken out of service.