why splitting uranium releases energy but we haven’t see any stray (random) nuclear explosion in natural ore deposits?

1.28K views

And if splitting atom releases energy, why haven’t these energy break from their atom themselves? Isn’t that means the force that bind the atoms are bigger than the energy released?

In: 508

44 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In order for uranium 235 to split it needs an activation, which is typically a neutron.

You don’t have a lot of free floating neutrons just flying around. When uranium 235 splits it releases 2-3 neutrons that can go on to impact other uranium-235 atoms, however the chances of a neutron hitting a nuclei is extremely low, they are very small. For criticality, that meaning a sustained nuclear reaction to happen, you need lots of uranium-235 very closely together so that on average at least 1 of those neutrons from a uranium-235 decay hits another uranium nuclei. That only happens in bombs and nuclear reactors.

There’s also tons of oil and natural gas deposits all over, and they would love to burn and explode to release all that energy, but just like uranium, you need to give it a push to start that reaction.

You are viewing 1 out of 44 answers, click here to view all answers.