By Taft Wireback, Greensboro News & Record.

Duke Energy has stirred controversy in North Carolina’s hog industry with plans to burn biogas from out-of-state swine waste at its Dan River and Buck power plants.

The N.C. Pork Council wants state officials to squelch the Charlotte-based utility’s plan to rely on hog waste from the Midwest to meet the requirements of a state law calling on electric companies to use small amounts of swine-based fuel in their operations.

North Carolina has an abundance of its own hog waste, and the utility should be required to tap those sources in meeting the state standard, said Angie Maier, director of policy development and communication for the hog-industry council that’s headquartered in Raleigh.