I recall this has been looked at more than a few times over the years. The problem is that the sweet light crude is long gone and what remains is heavy asphalt trapped in sandstone. To extract it was too expensive and needed a steam system to loosen it to flow and be pumped. Very noisy and odiferous.

Of course expensive is relative and now that crude is so far over $100 barrel a lot of sources skipped over in the past now are economical.

I don’t think many Angelenos are willing to give up parks, yards or whatever to get the thick stuff up and out. Even if it meant getting gas locally back under $3/gallon.

Leave it be. Let’s spend all that no-future-prospectin’ money on developing better solar cells. We’re drowning in free energy on that front.

Been to Ladera Heights/Baldwin Hills ever? Wonder why those centrally located hilltops with their spectacular views remain dotted with all that bobbing oil equipment going up-n-down instead of blanketed by pricey homes in exclusive gated communities?

Quite true Will, there are also huge fields in Santa Clarita just off the 14, off the 57 too around Diamond Bar I think.

Don’t forget that even 20 years ago Signal Hill was full of wells and pumps, now its been pretty well bulldozed over and subdivisions installed. It happens.

I’m with Mack though free energy like solar needs to be a significant source of energy for those of us in the sun belt. Nuke is another but we need decide once and for all what we will do with the waste in terms of storage.

Why not? The oil companies handled that whole “oops — we flooded Baldwin Vista with oil sludge” thing so well in 1963. They bought the city off and killed a neighborhood.

If I have a straw and my straw reaches across the room…

There was a very informative Which Way LA/KCRW segment on the oil in LA and the direction things are heading, you can hear it here.

http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/ww/ww080507urban_oil_in_souther

We should kill two birds with one stone, by extracting the oil while we dig some subway extensions. “And then one day they were tunnelin’ some tube, when up from the ground come a bubblin’ crude.”

Drill drill drill. Drain the tar pits dry! All available milkshakes must be drinked, especially if Obama isn’t open to coastal drilling or nuclear power.

LA could practically be Dubai if it wanted it to.

Didn’t we learn anything from There Will Be Blood? Let Daniel Plainview of explain this one: “That land has been had. Nothing you can do about it. It’s gone. It’s had. You lose. … Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake! I drink it up!”

[...] This just in… There’s oil in these here hills. Black gold. Texas tea. Possibly billions of gallons of it, says a CNN Situation Room report observed by Metblog L.A.’s Dave Markland. [...]