Bodega, CA 94922
United States
Latitude: 38.30517
Longitude: -123.05889
Nuclear Reactor
http://www.sonoma.edu/Geology/wright/bhead.html
An epic environmental drama unfolded here in the early 1960s where PG and E started construction on a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head. Nuclear Power plants need cooling water, and the most abundant supply of cold water is along the coast. Unfortunately, there are many active faults along the coast, and this site was right next to the San Andreas Fault. They excavated a huge pit for the foundation, and encountered the sandstones.
A geologist happened to be studying these layers and found that they were offset by a fault. This indicated that there had been an earthquake with offset along this fault less than 40,000 years ago.
The fault also may be connected to the San Andreas Fault. We can see minor faults and folds caused by earthquake shaking in the sandstone bluffs along Windmill Beach. Public pressure of the danger of nuclear power plants and the presence of this fault prompted PG and E to decide that it would not be a good idea to build a nuclear power plant on a fault and so they abandoned the project here.
They looked at a site to the north at Point Arena, also next to the San Andreas Fault, but found that the marine terraces there had been tilted recently by large earthquakes. They finally decided on a site to the south at Diablo Canyon
Wasserman - Last Energy War