U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan said she is not opposed to drilling for oil or natural gas off the North Carolina coast if that is what the state decides to do.

"If the state determines that we need to be drilling," Hagan said, "I would support that."

She said North Carolina should get a healthy share of any revenues — perhaps 35 percent, Rob Christensen reports.

"I'm not opposed to it," Hagan said in an interview.

But she said the environmental impact, the cost of retrieving the oil and gas, and what kind of reserves are off the coast are all factors that would have to be weighed.

Oil rigs off North Carolina's coast would not be visible.

UNC-Chapel Hill geology professor Lou Bartek said that drilling rigs can be as tall as several hundred feet, but they would be 45 miles off the coastline. That means tourists would not be able to see them from state beaches.

But that doesn't mean they wouldn't affect the area.

"You would have boats running back and forth that are supplying the rigs, and you're going to have a pipeline of some sort to take what you're producing and get it to where it will be refined," he said. "That's going to have a footprint."

Bartek said that a big question would be where the pipeline goes. He said any natural gas processing would likely be done inland and not on the Outer Banks, but it would also require a deep port that could handle the ships to take the gas elsewhere.

"One of the problems we're going to run into is that there hasn't been a refinery built in this country in a long time," he said.  

No one knows for sure whether there's oil off the North Carolina coast.

But researchers believe there's a substantial cache of natural gas in an area about 45 miles off Cape Hatteras based on past experience, explains UNC-Chapel Hill geology professor Kevin Stewart.

The gas would have formed when layers of prehistoric organic matter — basically dead sea creatures from about 150 million years ago — were buried under limestone rock. Being closer to the earth's crust, they were heated over millions of years.

As the material became natural gas, it floated upward, filling giant pores in the rock, "like a big sponge," Stewart said. Shale on top of the limestone then acted as a cap that kept the gas from escaping.

Stewart said they do not know for sure whether there's natural gas off the coast, but sophisticated models comparing similar geological conditions give strong indications.

"No one really knows until they drill, but from their models they know it's likely," he said.

Orrin Pilkey says accidents will happen.

The Duke University geology professor told Dome that if drilling for natural gas is allowed off the North Carolina coast, it's a matter of time before some kind of a spill happens.

But it won't necessarily be as catastrophic as drilling critics contend.

Pilkey said that several factors could determine the effects of a spill. If it's off the continental shelf, the spill would more likely affect the Virginia coast because of the gulf stream. The effects would also depend on whether the material was in a tanker or a pipeline.

He said pipelines are safer because they can be shut off during a storm, while tankers tend to have bigger spills that can damage large areas. But both are subject to what he called, borrowing a phrase, "normal accidents," or spills that are easy to foresee and impossible to prevent.

"The idea that we will get away scot-free is nonsense," he said.

Pat McCrory said offshore drilling is part of a long-range plan.

At a press conference this afternoon in Raleigh, the Republican gubernatorial nominee said that he recognizes that natural gas and oil exploration off of North Carolina's coast would take years to have an effect on the energy market.

But he argued that it would affect speculators, who consider the long-range availability  

"If not here, then where?" he asked, saying the alternative would be to rely on countries he characterized as essentially dictatorships. "If we're not willing to drill off our own coasts, then where will you drill? Off Venezuela? Off Nigeria? Saudia Arabia, Russia?" 

The Charlotte mayor said that anyone who drives daily and opposes drilling is "hypocritical."

"What you're really saying is 'I'm willing to take oil from someplace else except for my own backyard,'" he said.

McCrory said that drilling would be just one part of his energy plan. He said he would push for more mass transit across the state as well as more wind, solar and nuclear power and more efficient state buildings, among other conservation measures.