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Sep 2, 2020 at 10:44 comment added Oscar Bravo This is the essential point of the answer. The OP is under the misapprehension that it is energy-content that makes a good explosive. However, all chemical reactions have roughly the same energy density (to an order of magnitude or two). So it's the rate of reaction that makes the difference.
Sep 1, 2020 at 19:28 comment added supercat To some extent, one might notice the peak amount of energy that accumulates in objects near the reaction. If one burns a lump of coal, it will impart a lot of heat to nearby objects, but by the time the coal finishes releasing energy, those objects will usually have had a chance to dissipate the extremely vast majority of the energy they had received. By contrast, objects near an explosion will quickly receive all of the energy they're going to get from it, without having a chance to release a non-trivial amount.
Sep 1, 2020 at 12:35 history answered Mike Scott CC BY-SA 4.0