Fresh fuel pellets are “safe” in that they’re not going to kill you immediately, but they’re still fairly radioactive, not just from alpha decay, but from spont

Fresh fuel pellets are “safe” in that they’re not going to kill you immediately, but they’re still fairly radioactive, not just from alpha decay, but from spontaneous fissioning, which produces neutrons. Pile em up and they’ll start a chain reaction all on their own. There’s even geological evidence of natural chain reactions in some uranium ore seams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...