On Nov 18, 5:40*pm, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:09:27 -0800 (PST), "$27 TRILLION to pay for

Kyoto" wrote:
Innumeracy is still the affliction of the mentally weak. *The
inability to appreciate the odds of an accident are so low they aren't
worth worrying about.

I agree that most people have no clue about actual risks.

But the risks with RTGs are real, and the odds of an accident very high.
Rocket launches fail all the time, with loss of the payload. That's a
very difficult environment to consider when maintaining containment of
dangerous materials is critical. A huge effort goes into designing RTGs
with that in mind.

Yes, because of the care that goes into the engineering, the actual odds
of a failed RTG launch causing human or environmental harm are low. But
that's because the high probability of an accident has been considered
in the design.

Which was already very good even in the 1960's, before most of the
protesters had any idea of what an RTG even was.

It is because the odds of actual harm are low that you don't find many
people opposing these launches.

Most people never even have any idea when a launch is about to take
place.

It isn't a standard position of
environmentalists to oppose them. And it's why the few who do oppose
this technology have not had any real success in limiting it.

The few who oppose this technology are also unhappy about other
technologies, generally.