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GREENSBORO — Flick on a light switch.

You just burned coal or split the atom.

For decades, North Carolina has generated almost all of its electricity with coal-fired or nuclear power plants.

But that’s changing.

The state’s electricity soon will come from a much more diverse set of sources: The wind. The sun. Animal waste.

The implications for North Carolina literally reach, as the saying goes, from Murphy to Manteo.

Massive wind turbines on mountain ridges and off the coast. Solar farms scattered across the state. Poultry-litter burning units wherever you find lots of chickens.

And then there are the ripple effects.

Cleaner air. Thousands of jobs. Higher energy costs. Fights about the location of wind turbines and the smell of burning chicken waste.

“It is clearly a new day,” said John Morrison, the state’s assistant secretary of energy.

A gold rush

In some ways, it’s the 21st century equivalent of the gold rush.

North Carolina sits on huge energy reserves — not of oil, but of coastal wind and animal waste.

For decades, they sat dormant, considered too expensive to tap. But two years ago, the General Assembly passed a far-reaching law that radically reshaped the state’s electricity industry.

By 2021, the investor-owned utilities — Duke Energy, Progress Energy, Dominion — must produce 12.5 percent of their electricity from renewable sources or from energy efficiency.

That means opportunity. Billions of dollars are at stake as different players look to get in on the business of renewable energy — the construction of turbines, solar panels, power plants.

The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association projects the law will lead to the creation of more than 4,000 jobs by 2021.

There is a cost, however. The needed investments won’t be cheap, and some sources of renewable energy are more expensive than coal and nuclear power.

“That cost will be passed along to the ratepayers,” said Paul Quinlan, director of economic research and development for the Sustainable Energy Association.

The changes also mean environmental benefits. North Carolina produces far more electricity from coal — the dirtiest, most carbon dioxide-emitting source of power — than the national average.

And beyond the law, another huge factor will shape the future of electricity in North Carolina: We’re going to need more of it. The state’s population is expected to soar from 8 million to an estimated 12 million by 2030.

“We need new sources of generation,” Quinlan said.

Cheap but dirty

If you turn on a light, live in a house with air conditioning or store food in a refrigerator, you’re burning coal.

The majority of electricity generated in North Carolina — about 60 percent — comes from coal-fired plants. And that’s not going to change dramatically.

Coal has obvious and overwhelming advantages. It’s cheap, and America has it in abundance.

That said, it comes with huge disadvantages — and hidden costs that don’t show up in our utility bills.

Coal is the dirtiest by far, emitting massive quantities of sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxide and other pollutants into the air.

Coal-fired plants are the largest single source of greenhouse gases, producing a ton of carbon dioxide for each megawatt-hour of electricity produced.

According to a report from the National Research Council, the annual cost of pollution belched out of such plants amounts to $62 billion, not counting climate-related costs.

Much of the damage comes from a relative handful of smoke-belching plants, however.

Duke is spending some $2 billion on a major new coal-burning unit at its Cliffside Steam Station near the South Carolina line. That will take four older, dirtier units out of commission and, according to the utility, generate twice as much electricity with fewer emissions.

As other utilities follow suit, the damage from coal plants should decline.

By comparison, natural gas — which fires units at Duke’s Dan River plant in Eden — produces just a twentieth of the damage of the average coal plant.

Still, wrote Duke’s chief executive officer, Jim Rogers, “We simply cannot meet our obligation to serve customers with affordable, reliable and increasingly clean electricity without coal in our fuel mix.”

Not in my backyard

One of the most obvious sources of power is also one of the most — literally and figuratively — radioactive.

No one wants a nuclear power plant next to their city.

But finding a way to thread the needle through the nation’s conflicting electricity needs — more power yet less carbon emissions, and no one wants to pay too much — is nearly impossible without nuclear power.

“Building new nuclear power plants is essential to any serious plan to decarbonize our nation’s energy supply,” Duke’s energy plan says.

Duke wants to build a massive nuclear plant just across the South Carolina line, one of the first in this country in decades. But look for opposition to be fierce.

Technical issues exist as well, chiefly what to do with the waste. Currently, spent fuel is stored at individual power plants. The federal government has looked for ways to create a more secure, permanent location. One controversial idea: burying it in a Nevada mountain.

Blowing in the wind

Imagine if North Carolina sat on top of massive oil reserves, black gold that lay in wait just below the surface. Imagine a boom of the kind that minted millionaires in Texas and Oklahoma.

Only it’s wind, not oil, that’s prime for the pumping.

In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, North Carolina could be among the top eight states in wind electricity production by 2030.

Some of those resources lie to the west, along mountain ridgelines. But most await offshore, above the water of the Pamlico Sound and beyond the delicate line of islands that make up the Outer Banks.

There, massive wind turbines stretching hundreds of feet above the waves could generate as much as 12,000 megawatts by 2030.

“We could be a real leader in offshore wind,” Morrison said.

But there are obstacles. For one, turbines are expensive to build. And the massive blades can act as a giant Cuisinart for birds. Some also object on aesthetic grounds, saying turbines would spoil the view.

A bill passed by the state Senate would effectively prohibit commercial wind energy in the mountains, although the measure has not cleared the House.

But the practical need to tap wind as an energy source could overpower objections. And it is feasible in big and little ways.

“Community wind” or “small wind” projects that power neighborhoods or buildings could increasingly pop up, such as a student-led effort to erect a turbine near the football stadium at Appalachian State University.

There, a 150-foot, 100-kilowatt turbine generates about 145,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to power 10 to 15 homes, according to the university. Student fees, approved in a 2004 referendum, paid for a significant portion of the $533,000 cost.

And research is helping in the siting of projects to avoid bird carnage, Quinlan said.

Finally, the price is coming down.

“Wind is on a hot streak,” he said.

Turning chicken waste into chicken power

The name gives biomass a high-tech gloss. The reality is somewhat different: burning chicken waste.

That and other forms of animal waste, wood and burnable organic materials — are in no short supply in North Carolina.

As long as chicken nuggets stay popular, there will be plenty of biomass. Burning it releases plenty of carbon into the atmosphere, but the process is considered carbon-neutral, given that the waste already existed.

Biomass isn’t complicated. Existing coal plants already can add in a small biomass mix — about 3 to 5 percent — without significant upgrades, Quinlan said.

Duke is looking into adding biomass to its fuel mix in existing plants as well as converting one completely to biomass.

A company called Fibrowatt is planning a plant — possibly followed by two more — that will burn chicken waste. The first plant would produce enough power to supply 40,000 homes, the company says.

There are drawbacks, though. Renewable doesn’t necessarily equal clean, and compared with other renewable sources, biomass is dirty.

The plants have drawn opposition from residents concerned about pollutants emitted from the burning process.

Fibrowatt argues that biomass isn’t dirtier than any other kind of combustion and that it will have to go through a rigorous permitting process.

Ultimately, the plants could soak up a substantial portion of the chicken waste generated in a region. And in a state among the leaders in chicken and pork production, there’s plenty of fuel to be found.

“North Carolina actually has a very great potential,” Quinlan said.

Harnessing a star

North Carolina might not be New Mexico, but the sunshine here is worth harvesting as well.

Last year, the state ranked 10th in megawatts of solar power added, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Solar is expensive. But with more research and installations, the price should drop.

It’s also one of the most available alternatives on a residential scale. Unlike a wind turbine, adding solar panels can be practical for an average homeowner.

The price of solar power has plummeted in recent years, but it’s still expensive for homeowners.

A system might cost $16,000 to $40,000, according to the Department of Energy. Tax credits and other incentives can bring that cost down.

Other forms of alternative energy hold promise but will have a smaller practical effect.

So-called “microhydro” plants — in essence, tiny dams — can produce small amounts of power, but the trend has been toward restoring streams by eliminating dams, not adding new ones.

And other forms of electricity — geothermal, where heat escaping from the Earth’s crust is captured, or tidal energy — simply aren’t present or feasible on any major scale in North Carolina.

The zen power plant: efficiency, conservation

And, finally, there is one other kind of new power plant, one that promises the cleanest, cheapest electricity of all.

The nonexistent one.

Unsexy as it might sound, the best source of new electricity is using less in the first place.

Simply put, it means taking steps to ensure that everything — appliances, homes, the power grid — uses and wastes as little energy as possible.

In contrast to the gee-whiz value of solar panels or giant windmills, efficiency is boring. But it is effective.

“You see a lot of what we call 'green bling’ out in the marketplace these days,” said Krista Egger, who works with a Raleigh-based nonprofit group that promotes energy efficiency.

But sometimes living green is more about how we live and less about what we buy. Something as simple as making sure air ducts don’t leak can lead to massive energy and money savings.

Technology plays a role, whether it’s programmable thermostats or a “smart grid” in which computers control the flow of electricity to where it’s needed, when it’s needed.

Efficiency isn’t just a focus for homeowners. Duke expects about 2 million megawatt hours worth of savings from improved efficiency each year by 2021, or about 25 percent of the utility’s total production of renewable energy and energy efficiency, said Owen Smith, the utility’s director of renewable energy.

And in the end, it’s the cheapest.

So as we tap the sun, wind, atoms and coal, much of the answer might come from a less obvious place: nowhere.

Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or at jason.hardin@news-record.com