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

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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?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

We do see energy getting released from natural ores which contain uranium. But the amount of energy being released from natural processes is very low. The difference between the fission that takes place in ore and in processed uranium is that the processed uranium produce a runaway reaction. When uranium undergoes fission it produce three neutrons which will cause fission in any other uranium atoms they hit. But in natural ore the amount of uranium is so low that the neutrons will most likely hit other atoms instead. So the reaction stops with one atom, or in some rare cases two. In nuclear reactors we make sure that the conditions are just right for one of the neutrons to hit another uranium atom on average. This means the reaction keeps going and release more and more energy.

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