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DAVID GOLDMAN - APProtesters link arms across PeachtreeStreet in Atlanta as police move in. Clarkson

By David Perlmutt and Meghan Cooke

dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com

macooke@charlotteobserver.com

President Barack Obama unveiled a planWednesday that could give millions of young peo-ple, including thousands of recent N.C. collegegraduates, some relief on student loan payments.

Obama will accelerate a measure passed byCongress that cuts the maximum required pay-ment on student loans from 15 percent of discre-tionary income annually to 10 percent. He willput it into effect in 2012, instead of 2014.

In addition, the White House says the remainingdebt would be forgiven after 20 years instead of 25.About 1.6 million borrowers could be affected.

The move would help recent graduates suchas Alison Wadsworth.

The 25-year-old set out on a job search aftergraduating this year from Campbell Universitywith a law degree and an MBA.

But now the student loan bills are piling in,and Wadsworth, who’s licensed to practice law,is working in retail in Charlotte to help pay offthe crippling debt she racked up in school.

“It’s kind of tragic when you’ve worked sohard for your future,” she said.

An estimated 30,000 current students would beable to lower their monthly payments through the“pay as you earn” program, according to a state-

Obamaspeedsstudentdebt aidThe president will start a programthat will help millions of borrowerstwo years earlier than planned.

SEE STUDENTS , 4ALoyd Ray Farms joins a handful of

North Carolina hog farms that havebecome energy in-novators. They’reprompted by statelaws aimed atboosting renewableenergy and phasingout open waste pitsthat can taint waterand release harmfulammonia into theair.

“I was kind of curious myself howit was going to do,” said farm owner

By Bruce Henderson

bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com

YADKINVILLE — The old saw aboutusing every part of a pig but thesqueal now includes its droppings,which are producing electricity on aYadkin County farm.

Duke University is a partner withDuke Energy and Google in testinga system that captures methane, apotent greenhouse gas, from ma-nure. The gas fuels a small powerplant that makes enough energy torun the waste-processing systemand part of the farm itself.

Loyd Bryant, who at 71 is part of theold guard. Bryant first raised hogs inthe 1960s. More than 8,600 now fat-ten up in his row of barns.

“There will be a few more recordsto keep, but it’s not going to be nobig thing,” he said. “And it mightbring my power bill down.”

The powerful troika collaborat-ing on the project will also benefit.The university and Google, whichowns a data center in Lenoir, scorecredits to offset their carbon emis-sions. Duke Energy gets help in

“I was kind ofcurious myselfhow it was goingto do,” saidfarmer LoydBryant, 71. Thepaperwork’s “notgoing to be nobig thing. And itmight bring mypower bill down.”

Alternative energy:9,000 hogs plus a

high-tech wastedigester equals

methane

PIG WASTE PROVES POWERFUL

PHOTOS BY JOHN D. SIMMONS - jsimmons@charlotteobserver.com

Tatjana Vujic, director of Duke University’s carbon offsets initiative, walks between the aeration basin, left, and an anaerobic digester on LoydRay Farms in Yadkin County. Nearly 9,000 hogs are in a pilot program with the university and Duke Energy to turn hog waste into electricity.

Bryant

HOGPOWER

Watch aslideshow fromthe farm atcharlotteobserver.com/photos.

SEE HOGS, 4A

IN BUSINESSApple quietlybegins work on asolar farm inCatawba County.3B

By Steven Thomma

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The Republican Party is catch-ing flat-tax fever – and setting up an epic elec-tion-year fight with Democrats over whetherwealthier Americans should pay higher taxes orget tax cuts.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Rom-ney became the latest to punch the tax buttonWednesday, telling a Virginia audience that he’llsoon update his economic proposal to spell outways to flatten the tax code.

His vow came just a day after rival Rick Perrygrabbed headlines and talk-show chatter with aproposal for an optional flat 20 percent tax onincome. Both followed Herman Cain’s pitch for aflat 9 percent income tax as part of his 9-9-9 plan,which helped him jump to the top tier of candi-dates for their party’s 2012 nomination. NewtGingrich and Michele Bachmann endorse a flat

Romney joinsGOP push toflatten tax codeRepublican presidential candidates’plans would simplify taxes andbenefit wealthy Americans.

SEE TAX PLANS, 6A

By Mark Price

msprice@charlotteobserver.com

The Charlotte Area ParanormalSociety – yes, there is such a thing– says it has found proof of hun-dreds of area hauntings over thepast six years.

That means its teams have re-corded, observed or photo-graphed what they believe to be

unexplainable sounds, sights,touches and smells.

This is their busy season, too,owing to publicity surroundingHalloween.

But hundreds of hauntings doesnot add up to hundreds of ghostsbeing evicted, says Tina McSwain,who founded the group.

It seems not all clients wanttheir ghosts removed, so the soci-ety has only done about 60 of its“ghost rescues,” where specialistsacted as “mediators” to persuadethe dead to move on.

“Some people are terrified ofthe unknown thing in their house,”McSwain says, “and then there are

the people that thinkit’s the greatest thingsince sliced bread.

“They have a pres-ence in their homeand they name it,like a family pet.They bring us in todetermine who it

might be: a George or a Martha.”National polls in recent years

have shown more than one-third

of Americans believe in ghosts, astatistic reflected in the popularityof TV shows like “Ghost Hunters”and movies like “Paranormal Ac-tivity 3.”

When the Observer recentlyasked readers for their personalghost stories, a few dozen sent intales of hauntings. They included

Charlotte’s ghost detectives are dead seriousParanormal group usesscientific tools to prove ordisprove your hauntings.

GHOST STORIESSee tomorrow’s Observer for thefirst in a series of readerexperiences with the paranormal.

SEE GHOSTS, 4A

McSwain

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4A Thursday, October 27, 2011 ■ charlotteobserver.com • The Charlotte Observer +FROM PAGE ONE

meeting a state mandate that,starting in 2012, utilities makeelectricity from swine waste.

The university and the util-ity also hope for insights inhow to make such innovationsmore affordable – the Loyd Rayproject cost $1.2 million – andfit them into a slowly expand-ing menu of energy choices.

“This is a learning opportu-nity for us to get it on theground, refine it and under-stand the benefits and thecosts,” said Tatjana Vujic, di-rector of Duke University’sCarbon Offsets Initiative. Withthe experience already gained,and use of off-the-shelf parts,Duke researchers believe theycould build a similar systemnow for substantially less.

Beginning next year, NorthCarolina utilities have to get0.07 percent of their electricityfrom hog waste. The figure ris-es to 0.20 percent by 2018. Statelaw includes a similar require-ment for poultry waste.

Learning how it works

The renewable energy creditsthat Duke Energy will reap fromthe Yadkin County farm will on-ly partly meet its obligation in2012, company spokesman JasonWalls said. Hitting the state’sswine- and poultry-waste targetswill be a challenge, he said.

“It’s really driven by the im-maturity of that market andtechnology,” Walls said. “Thereal value for us at Loyd RayFarms is that it helps us learnhow this technology workswith our system, how reliable itcan be. We’re really approach-ing this as a research project.”

After three years of work,

the new project is up and run-ning. Dignitaries will attend anopen house on Friday.

They’ll find a newlyequipped swine farm that, al-though it opened in 1998, isnow able to meet the state stan-dards for odor, ammonia, nu-trients, pathogens and metalsthat would be demanded of anew farm.

Bryant, like most hog farm-ers, previously sprayed efflu-ent from an open waste lagoononto fields of grass and milletto absorb its heavy load of nu-trients. The new system will lethim return the spray area to

growing corn and other crops.Grants from the federal Nat-

ural Resources ConservationService and North Carolina’slagoon-conversion programpaid $500,000 toward the proj-ect. Duke Energy and DukeUniversity picked up the otherconstruction costs and operat-ing costs for 10 years. Googlebought in last month, agreeingto help pay the university’scosts for five years in return fora share of carbon offsets.

The project builds on re-search into lagoon alternativesthat began in 2000, after largewaste spills focused attention

on the lagoons’ environmentalcosts. In 2007, state legislatorsadopted standards to beginshifting toward alternatives toopen waste pits and spraying.

North Carolina remains aleading hog-producing state,with more than 2,100 permit-ted farms raising 9.4 million an-imals a year.

Loyd Ray’s is the first systemusing an anaerobic digester,which decomposes waste, tobe permitted by the N.C. Divi-sion of Water Quality as an in-novative animal-waste man-agement system. It uses readilyobtainable parts but in uniquedesigns by Wilmington-basedCavanaugh & Associates.

It’s expected to capturemethane – a greenhouse gas 21times more potent than carbondioxide – that is the equivalentof nearly 5,000 metric tons ofCO² a year. A 65-kilowatt mi-cro-turbine fueled by the gasproduces enough electricity topower 35 homes for a year.

Mike Williams, director ofN.C. State University’s Animaland Waste Management Cen-ter, said he knows of only fourother N.C. hog farms that useanaerobic digesters to produceenergy. All four are in EasternNorth Carolina.

The problem is that harvest-ing energy from pig poop is tooexpensive for most hog farm-ers to shoulder alone. Utilitieswon’t pay enough for the elec-tricity from such systems tomake them economically via-ble, Williams said. Loyd Ray’senergy never leaves the farm.

“We need to put more ofthese things on the ground todo value engineering to makethem more efficient and af-fordable,” Williams said.

Henderson: 704-358-5051

JOHN D. SIMMONS - jsimmons@charlotteobserver.com

Hog farmer Loyd Bryant, far left, works near a micro turbine next to the aeration basin and one of his nine fan-ventilated “hoghouses,” at right. Duke Energy, Duke University and Google are involved in the project.

The Loyd Ray Farms project, in the works for three years, useshog waste to fuel a small power plant. Starting in January, N.C.utilities must make some electricity from swine waste.

Pig manure to energyHow it works at Loyd Ray Farms:

Wastewater flushed from the hog houses – 400,000 gallons aweek – is piped into a 2 million gallon basin called an anaerobicdigester. Bacteria break down wastes in an oxygen-free environmentand produce biogas that is about 60 percent methane.

A dome of heavy black plastic that covers the basin bulges fromthe pressure of captured biogas. Gas is piped out of the digester,cleaned, and fed into a micro-turbine that makes electricity.

Water from the digester then goes to a second basin that is aerat-ed periodically. Bacteria there convert the ammonia into a safer formof nitrogen. Ammonia air emissions from intensive livestock farmscan form fine particles in the air that can cause health problems.

The treated water is used to flush out the nine hog houses on thefarm. Because it’s cleaner than the lagoon effluent previously used,researchers hope for a side benefit: healthier pigs.

HOGS• from 1A

one Cabarrus County manwho said he recently called theparanormal society in desper-ation after “smoky white shad-ows” began transforming intospirits as the entire familywatched.

“One thing is for sure: It isreal and starting to destroy ourwell-being,” wrote the hus-band and father in an email.

“The activity has increasedto the point we are consideringselling our home or moving inwith friends until the earthbound spirits are removed.”

Formed in 2005, the Char-lotte Area Paranormal Societyhas about 20 members and isdedicated to using scientificmethods to prove or debunkthe presence of paranormal ac-tivity. McSwain – whose full-time job is as a purchasingmanager for a heating and aircompany – says her researchinto the paranormal actuallydates back much further, to1989, when she says she saw afull-blown apparition in aMyers Park home.

Typical clients for the soci-ety these days include home-owners, businesses and evenhistoric sites, all suspected ofhosting human spirits that didnot “pass on to the next realm.”

Sensitive questions areasked in the investigation pro-cess, such as whether the clientis abusing alcohol or drugs, orwhether there is a family histo-ry of mental illness, saysMcSwain.

It’s all confidential, she says.It’s also free – most of themembers have day jobs – butthe group does take donations.

Coincidentally, it’s not theonly such group in the state, oreven the county. Most of thegroups operate on the sameprinciples, promising to be ob-jective in proving or disprov-ing paranormal presence.

Their methods include stillphotography, meters to detectelectromagnetic fields, ther-mal imaging cameras and au-dio recordings. The society

even has a team geologist, whostudies geologic surveys andtests for radon gas.

Why?“Radon can make people un-

balanced and see things,” saysShannon Krasel, the society’sgeologist since 2008.

And quartz in the soil “is likea conduit for an entity to getpower to be able to communi-cate with people.”

More than half of the group’sinvestigations turn out to benothing other than coinci-dence, like rattling pipes thatsound like footsteps.

Then there’s the other half,like the 2009 case of a Charlottewoman named Kim, who pre-fers not to give her full name.

Kim says she called for helpafter years of living with musicin the attic, muffled conversa-tions and apparitions.

She first tried her own meth-ods, including making the signof the cross over the front doorin olive oil, circling rooms insalt, and having two ministersbless the house.

Then something kicked thefamily dog down the drivewayand she’d had enough.

The society came, discov-ered signs of multiple entities,she says, and did a “ghost res-cue.”

“There’s no convincing askeptic,” Kim says, “but whenyou’ve had your Christmastree shake like crazy on Christ-mas Eve, sending your grownchildren screaming into yourbedroom, you start to seethings differently.

“I don’t care if you believeme or not.”

Another client, Linda, inStanly County, also needed arescue after one spirit pokedher husband in the back of thehead and another scared her6-year-old son.

“I still hear noises,” she ad-mits. “The paranormal societydid ask the spirits to move on,and I’m waiting to see if itworked.

“As long they’re not intoscaring us, I don’t care if theystay.”

Price: 704-358-5245

GHOSTS• from 1A

ment from the White House.More than 85,000 would beable to reduce their interestrates and simplify payments byconsolidating loans.

The plan will also allow aborrower who has a loan fromthe Federal Family EducationLoan Program and a directloan from the government toconsolidate them into one. Theconsolidated loan would carryan interest rate of up to a halfpercentage point less than be-fore. This could affect 5.8 mil-lion borrowers.

The White House said thechanges will carry no addi-tional costs to taxpayers.

Tuition is up 8.3%

Student loans are the No. 2source of household debt.The president’s announce-ment came on the same dayas a new report on tuitioncosts from the College Board.

It showed that average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose $631this fall, or 8.3 percent, com-pared with a year ago. Na-tionally, the cost of a full cred-it load has passed $8,000, anall-time high.

Wadsworth graduated fromUNC Chapel Hill and beganlaw school at Campbell Uni-versity in 2008, just as theeconomy spiraled downward.Now highly educated but un-able to find a job that would al-low her to afford her six-figurestudent loans, she’s strugglingto find a way to pay up.

Many of her fellow gradu-ates are in the same situation,Wadsworth said.

She has several govern-ment and private loans withinterest rates ranging from6.8 percent to 7.75 percent.

Students’ debt loads

At UNC Charlotte, about12,000 current undergradu-ates – nearly half the studentbody – receive federal stu-dent loans, said financial aiddirector Tony Carter.

Last year, about 10,500UNC Charlotte students bor-rowed $108.2 million in feder-al money, up 10 percent fromthe year before.

“It shows that more peopleare going into debt to pay forschool,” Carter said.

Much of the increase is areaction to cuts in financialaid grants and raises in tu-ition at UNC System schools.

Last year, students borrow-ing federal money graduated

with an average debt of$17,472, Carter said. Yet only1.5 percent of 2009 graduates(the latest figures) defaultedon student loans, down from2.1 percent two years before.

Appalachian State inBoone had similar numbers.About 48 percent of the uni-versity’s 8,238 undergraduateand graduate students re-ceive some form of studentloans, said financial aid direc-tor Esther Manogin.

“It can be a whopping pay-ment going out of college ifthey can’t get jobs rightaway,” she said.

The average AppalachianState student who has bor-rowed federal money gradu-ates with a debt of $16,153. Yetonly 1.8 percent have default-ed on loans.

“It’s a good investment forthe country to educate stu-dents,” Manogin said.

Between 78 and 86 percentof students at Queens Uni-versity of Charlotte have fed-eral loans, and on average 3.67percent have defaulted onloans over the past threeyears, said Brian Ralph,Queens’ vice president forenrollment management.The percentage of studentsrelying on federal loans is atan all-time high, he said.

“Obviously, the economyhas played into it substantial-ly,” he said.

Queens’ tuition increasesover the past three years havebeen relatively low – about4.75 percent since 2008.

Obama’s order, Ralph said,will be helpful for low-in-come students with federalloan debts.

“A rate cut could make a bigdifference, especially for stu-dents borrowing a big amountof money,” Ralph said.— THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CONTRIBUTED.

Perlmutt: 704-358-5061

STUDENTS • from 1A

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