September 4, 2006
Oil and water | Rep. Herb Adams has sponsored a bill to ban drilling off Maine's coast, but is there any oil or gas out there?
By Joseph R. Thompson
A storm in Congress is creating waves off the coast of Maine. A bill passed in June by the U.S. House of Representatives threatens to lift a 1982 ban on oil drilling on most areas of the outer continental shelf, an area of the seafloor that begins three nautical miles from the coast. Exceptions to this ban already exist in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska, but lifting the ban theoretically will allow oil and natural-gas drilling to occur between 50 and 100 miles off the coast anywhere in the lower 48 states.
Before changes to the law can take effect, the House bill must be reconciled with a Senate version that contains different recommendations for the country's offshore energy resources, but governors from across the country ˆ including Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Mark Sanford of South Carolina and John Baldacci ˆ and legislators such as Sen. Olympia Snowe have already spoken out against the plans.
In Maine, the change also caught the attention of at least one state legislator: Rep. Herb Adams, a Portland Democrat. According to the House bill, coastal states would have until June 30, 2009, to pass their own bans restricting offshore drilling, but Adams doesn't want to wait until the deadline. In July, he submitted a bill to block offshore drilling within 100 miles of Maine's coastline.
For Adams, oil and the Maine coast are intertwined issues. He sits on the Committee on Utilities and Energy as well as the Legislature's marine resources committee, and he sees big risks in allowing oil companies to drill off Maine's coast ˆ namely, the potential for spills, leaks and other environmental disasters. An accident, he says, could devastate two of Maine's largest industries, tourism and fishing. "In Maine, a healthy coast and a healthy economy are one in the same, and Mainers have known that for a hundred years," says Adams. "It will take only one such accident to prove the need for protection."
While the thought of oil spills fouling Maine's waters or tourists shunning the coast due to offshore industrialization causes concern, how likely is such a scenario? In the storm over potential drilling, the key question remains: Just how much oil is out there off the coast of Maine? Almost none at all, according to scientists and oil industry experts.
According to a 2006 U.S. Department of the Interior report, the Atlantic shelf, which covers the eastern coast from Maine to about halfway down the Florida peninsula, is believed to contain roughly 3.8 billion barrels of oil and approximately 37 trillion cubic feet of gas. But assessments of the various geological strata show that potential for that oil exists south of Virginia and at Georges Bank, situated between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, not in the Gulf of Maine.
Under the Gulf of Maine
In this case, Maine's geology is responsible for its lack of petroleum resources.
Hydrocarbons ˆ a molecule consisting of a carbon skeleton holding onto hydrogen atoms ˆ are found in sedimentary basins like the remnants of old oceans, tar sands and oil shales. Millions of years ago, these areas were rich in organic matter like zooplankton and algae, which, after their demise, broke down and formed kerogens, the precursor to hydrocarbons. Once the kerogen-containing sediments are heated past a minimum temperature due to the incredible geological pressure, the kerogens break down to become oil. If the temperature continues to increase, that oil will turn into natural gas.
The Gulf of Maine's geology long ago went through a period of cataclysmic upheaval responsible for eliminating these resources, according to Maine State Geologist Robert Marvinney. The formation of the Appalachian Mountains caused Maine's sedimentary rocks to be squeezed and heated to the point that oil reserves are unlikely. "[The Gulf of Maine] is mostly high-grade metamorphic rock from which all the hydrocarbons would have been driven out hundreds of millions of years ago," says Marvinney.
Joseph Kelley, professor of marine geology at the University of Maine, agrees. "When we look at the Gulf of Maine we're looking at rocks that were molten or rocks that fed volcanoes. They never hosted any organic compounds and never will," he says.
Kelley also notes that Maine's estuaries contain unquantifiable amounts of geologically recent natural gas known as swamp gas. That gas is non-commercially viable pure methane, however, not the extractable natural gas that oil companies look for, which is a complex mix of methane, butane, propane and other alkanes.
While there are some areas along the edges of the Gulf of Maine that contain natural gas and oil, none of these areas fall within Maine's economic waters. "Around the 200 mile range is the Georges Bank, that's the area with any significant potential for hydrocarbons," says Marvinney, adding that the the bank is actually part of Massachusetts' coastal waters. "Also, there've been recent [gas] discoveries a hundred miles off the coast of Nova Scotia [near] Sable Island."
These areas also are out of Maine's waters and therefore a state drilling ban would have no effect.
Even if Maine did have the resources, oil companies still might not want to drill off its coast, says Mickey Driver, spokesman for Chevron Corp. Beyond the presence of the resource, local politics and existing oil infrastructure also play a role in determining whether a company drills in an area, he says. He cites California as an example of a place with a large amount of offshore oil, but a political climate that makes it tough for new oil wells to be approved. For that reason, the company avoids even resource-rich California ˆ putting resource-poor Maine even further down the list of potential drilling sites. "The fact is there are many places around the world where it would be less onerous to drill than off the coast of Maine," says Driver.
Still, Adams says his legislative bill is important even if there's no oil under Maine's waters and the oil companies say they're looking elsewhere. First, there's a question to settle about state versus federal control of coastal regulations, due to a clause in the house bill that would allow the Secretary of the Interior to overturn any state moratoriums at will. "That's a serious wrinkle of federal preemption," says Adams. "All those states that find themselves somewhat at risk, I think, are going to have to work together. If the federal government is going to drop the 200-mile limit that protected us all and applied to us all, it would be very prudent for Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to all have the similar 100-mile limit."
Then he mentions the risk of desperation on the part of the oil industry, which is facing instability in other parts of the world and the eventual exhaustion of easily extractable oil. "You never know what will turn out to be valuable to those who think they have a right to extract it," says Adams. "Even the worst of the last of the fossil fuels will become valuable to someone."
The debate will head to the Statehouse in January 2007, when the Legislature takes up Adams' bill.
Before changes to the law can take effect, the House bill must be reconciled with a Senate version that contains different recommendations for the country's offshore energy resources, but governors from across the country ˆ including Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Mark Sanford of South Carolina and John Baldacci ˆ and legislators such as Sen. Olympia Snowe have already spoken out against the plans.
In Maine, the change also caught the attention of at least one state legislator: Rep. Herb Adams, a Portland Democrat. According to the House bill, coastal states would have until June 30, 2009, to pass their own bans restricting offshore drilling, but Adams doesn't want to wait until the deadline. In July, he submitted a bill to block offshore drilling within 100 miles of Maine's coastline.
For Adams, oil and the Maine coast are intertwined issues. He sits on the Committee on Utilities and Energy as well as the Legislature's marine resources committee, and he sees big risks in allowing oil companies to drill off Maine's coast ˆ namely, the potential for spills, leaks and other environmental disasters. An accident, he says, could devastate two of Maine's largest industries, tourism and fishing. "In Maine, a healthy coast and a healthy economy are one in the same, and Mainers have known that for a hundred years," says Adams. "It will take only one such accident to prove the need for protection."
While the thought of oil spills fouling Maine's waters or tourists shunning the coast due to offshore industrialization causes concern, how likely is such a scenario? In the storm over potential drilling, the key question remains: Just how much oil is out there off the coast of Maine? Almost none at all, according to scientists and oil industry experts.
According to a 2006 U.S. Department of the Interior report, the Atlantic shelf, which covers the eastern coast from Maine to about halfway down the Florida peninsula, is believed to contain roughly 3.8 billion barrels of oil and approximately 37 trillion cubic feet of gas. But assessments of the various geological strata show that potential for that oil exists south of Virginia and at Georges Bank, situated between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, not in the Gulf of Maine.
Under the Gulf of Maine
In this case, Maine's geology is responsible for its lack of petroleum resources.
Hydrocarbons ˆ a molecule consisting of a carbon skeleton holding onto hydrogen atoms ˆ are found in sedimentary basins like the remnants of old oceans, tar sands and oil shales. Millions of years ago, these areas were rich in organic matter like zooplankton and algae, which, after their demise, broke down and formed kerogens, the precursor to hydrocarbons. Once the kerogen-containing sediments are heated past a minimum temperature due to the incredible geological pressure, the kerogens break down to become oil. If the temperature continues to increase, that oil will turn into natural gas.
The Gulf of Maine's geology long ago went through a period of cataclysmic upheaval responsible for eliminating these resources, according to Maine State Geologist Robert Marvinney. The formation of the Appalachian Mountains caused Maine's sedimentary rocks to be squeezed and heated to the point that oil reserves are unlikely. "[The Gulf of Maine] is mostly high-grade metamorphic rock from which all the hydrocarbons would have been driven out hundreds of millions of years ago," says Marvinney.
Joseph Kelley, professor of marine geology at the University of Maine, agrees. "When we look at the Gulf of Maine we're looking at rocks that were molten or rocks that fed volcanoes. They never hosted any organic compounds and never will," he says.
Kelley also notes that Maine's estuaries contain unquantifiable amounts of geologically recent natural gas known as swamp gas. That gas is non-commercially viable pure methane, however, not the extractable natural gas that oil companies look for, which is a complex mix of methane, butane, propane and other alkanes.
While there are some areas along the edges of the Gulf of Maine that contain natural gas and oil, none of these areas fall within Maine's economic waters. "Around the 200 mile range is the Georges Bank, that's the area with any significant potential for hydrocarbons," says Marvinney, adding that the the bank is actually part of Massachusetts' coastal waters. "Also, there've been recent [gas] discoveries a hundred miles off the coast of Nova Scotia [near] Sable Island."
These areas also are out of Maine's waters and therefore a state drilling ban would have no effect.
Even if Maine did have the resources, oil companies still might not want to drill off its coast, says Mickey Driver, spokesman for Chevron Corp. Beyond the presence of the resource, local politics and existing oil infrastructure also play a role in determining whether a company drills in an area, he says. He cites California as an example of a place with a large amount of offshore oil, but a political climate that makes it tough for new oil wells to be approved. For that reason, the company avoids even resource-rich California ˆ putting resource-poor Maine even further down the list of potential drilling sites. "The fact is there are many places around the world where it would be less onerous to drill than off the coast of Maine," says Driver.
Still, Adams says his legislative bill is important even if there's no oil under Maine's waters and the oil companies say they're looking elsewhere. First, there's a question to settle about state versus federal control of coastal regulations, due to a clause in the house bill that would allow the Secretary of the Interior to overturn any state moratoriums at will. "That's a serious wrinkle of federal preemption," says Adams. "All those states that find themselves somewhat at risk, I think, are going to have to work together. If the federal government is going to drop the 200-mile limit that protected us all and applied to us all, it would be very prudent for Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to all have the similar 100-mile limit."
Then he mentions the risk of desperation on the part of the oil industry, which is facing instability in other parts of the world and the eventual exhaustion of easily extractable oil. "You never know what will turn out to be valuable to those who think they have a right to extract it," says Adams. "Even the worst of the last of the fossil fuels will become valuable to someone."
The debate will head to the Statehouse in January 2007, when the Legislature takes up Adams' bill.
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