Construction to start on $100M N.C. swine waste plant

Colorado company Carbon Cycle Energy will break ground Thursday on a $100 million biogas plant near Warsaw that will produce about 2.4 million dekatherms of natural-gas quality methane a year. A million dekatherms a year are contracted to Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) for use at its Buck, Dan River, H.F. Lee and Sutton combined-cycle natural gas plants. That is enough to produce about 125,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually, the equivalent of the power needed to supply about 10,000 homes. Because the plant produces methane from waste, it is carbon-neutral. It does not introduce any additional carbon into the environment as drilling the gas out of the ground does. Because of that, the biogas counts as a renewable energy resource. “This is a big development for biogas in North Carolina, says Duke spokesman Randy Wheeless.”It will be a major part of Duke Energy’s efforts to meet the (renewable energy requirements) for swine waste-to-power in the state.”