Page "Nuclear fission" Paragraph 18

Typical fission events release about two hundred million eV ( 200 MeV ) of energy for each fission event.

By contrast, most chemical oxidation reactions ( such as burning coal or TNT ) release at most a few eV per event.

So, nuclear fuel contains at least ten million times more usable energy per unit mass than does chemical fuel.

The energy of nuclear fission is released as kinetic energy of the fission products and fragments, and as electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma rays ; in a nuclear reactor, the energy is converted to heat as the particles and gamma rays collide with the atoms that make up the reactor and its working fluid, usually water or occasionally heavy water.