As far as probability of failure, having a large number of small powerplants raises it to basically 1. But as far as consequences go, it's a very different stor

As far as probability of failure, having a large number of small powerplants raises it to basically 1. But as far as consequences go, it's a very different story. If you have a 10 kg rock dropping on your head, you're very likely dead. For 10 kg of gravel you've very pissed, and for the same amount of sand you're... possibly having fun? We don't care that much about the probability of failure, because as a society we've already decided we REALLY don't like nuclear disasters. I don't think you could convince anybody that going from 1.5% to 0.5% is good enough. But lowering the maximum impact of a failure is a different game - it just means what we now call "disaster" becomes not just unlikely, but impossible.