CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Duke Energy Corp. is finally converting methane gas from North Carolina's plentiful hog operations into gas that could be burned at electric power plants.
The country's second-largest electric company said Tuesday that for the first time it is piping purified methane from industrial-scale hog farms into natural gas lines that supply power plants.
The milestone comes more than a decade after North Carolina legislators directed the company to start using animal waste to generate a fraction of the electricity it sells.
The biogas project captures methane from the hog waste of five Duplin County hog farms, pipes it into a central cleaning system nearby and then pushes the gas into pipelines where it can be used at a plant more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away to generate power.
► Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13News Now App.
