I'm just trying to learn about this theory but to my understanding it's basically like a domino effect "liberating" free electrons. I know this phenomenon is used in muller tubes to detect radiaton but is the townsend phenomenon part of what happens during a nuclear fusion or fission reaction? Since the effect "liberates" free electrons can the effect be used to generate electricity? I'm sorry if this questions seems weird, it just seems to me if one electrons, frees another and then another and then 2 more, etc etc it would be more of a nuclear process or something along those lines.

 

Electrons are not a significant factor in either nuclear fission, the splitting of an atom into two different and lighter atoms, nor nuclear fusion, the joining of two light elements into a heavier element.

The electron(positron) is a peripheral player in Beta decay, where a neutron becomes a proton, or vice versa, and ejects an electron(positron) from the nucleus along with a neutrino.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay
We now understand this event to be the result of a quark changing its flavor from up to down or down to up, with the ejection of an electron or a positron and a neutrino.